Animals have a Right to Live on Earth

By Akhilesh at 21 December, 2009, 9:22 pm

This Sunday I was on my way from Hampi to ‘Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary’ in the wilderness of Northern Karnataka. This was my first visit to a forest reserve in many years. My Auto rickshaw was wiggling like a snake and wobbling like a duck through the dusty rocky terrain of the jungle. Our destination was the ‘Watch Tower’, a safe place to check out the fascinating Indian Sloth Bear.

To my utmost astonishment I read something as dreadful as “Animals have a right to live on Earth” written on one of the sign boards inside the Sanctuary. This took my mind to the extremely pathetic state in which our wild life is in this country. I was moved by the statement and was thinking since when human beings are under an illusion of having a monopolistic right to live on earth. All the reserves and sanctuaries in India are under direct government governance. Suddenly I remembered a funny one liner from a Bollywood movie ‘Khosla ka Ghosla’. In this movie one of the characters tells the other, ’Sarkar ke paas insanon ke liye time nahin hai machliyon ka number kab aayega’ referring to one of the dilapidated Fishery Department board in the outskirts of ever expanding city.

Even though governments seem to be working on the ecological and wildlife issues but the truth is that “Insaanon kee samasyayein itni zyada ho gayee hain ki jaanwaron ka number aate aate kahin bahut der na ho jaaye.”

Human and Live stock encroachment is the problem that is ubiquitous in India due to tremendous pressure on forest land for cultivation and fodder for livestock. Due to similar circumstances farmers have lost lives and their sheep and cattle to a few leopards of the area.

Once I was on the top of the “Watch Tower”, I bumped into couple of gentlemen who were working on wildlife conservation projects in that particular area. One of them was completing his Phd. in Wildlife from Aligarh Muslim University. They were discussing as how Government of J&K was deciding to cull 270 Indian bears around forests of Srinagar. Some members of his team were in Jammu to appeal to Omar Abdullah to find an alternative solution.

I find culling animals is the most convenient solutions our governments have. The municipal corporations do not think twice before butchering all the stray dogs and the governments are replicating the solution in the villages surrounded by forests. Destructive thought is easier to implement as it is the first to appear in our mind, but if we act on it, its implications are dangerous and often ruining.

The grim discussion on the bears of Kashmir was disturbed by a cry from the roof of the Watch Tower, “Saab, I see a bear moving right ahead.” All of us adjusted our binoculars to see a glimpse of the majestic animal.

I saw through the lens, a huge bear moving his arms in excitement. Well, I can’t describe that moment for you but I could see the face of a little girl who was standing next to me and watching the bear with complete intensity. The expression of triumph, happiness and excitement through that child’s face was what every one of us felt when we saw the wildlife as it should be, FREE. Free from the dangers and clutches of human tyranny.

This Earth belongs to each species whether flora or fauna equally and infinitely. We all have EQUAL right to live on EARTH.

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Categories : Technology