YING & YANG - A WILDLIFE LOVERS BEDLAM -

$Follow us on the \\\\\\\$

My night ended with a very disturbing video but this morning I woke up to some fairly brilliant news.

To focus on the good first: Nepal has fulfilled the dream for every wildlife conservationist- five 365 day cycles without a single Rhino poaching case. A sweet concoction of awareness, effective communications strategies, and engaging the local community has lead to the overall success. Read the original article on this amazing feat here.

And now for the Yang: A video being widely shared via Whatsapp was sent to me for my attention. And I am more than just outraged. Watch the Times Of India’s coverage on the same video here.

Why is it that in one country so similar to our own, Nepal was after all a part of India once, can respect their wildlife & take conservation so seriously and us, the one’s who take so much pride in our culture and heritage, mock our wildlife this way?

Can we blame this behaviour to lack of awareness? I beg to differ. What we see in the video is not lack for awareness but is a lack of respect. Probably the men felt a dire need to prove their masculinity by subjugating a pride of Lions. What were they thinking, if at all they were, we will never know. But, it would be a blunder to presume that this is a ‘rarest of rare’ case. These incidents happen unremittingly. Just take a stroll through Sanjay Gandhi National Park or look around you in the next wild life safari you partake. Unruly crowds and bumptious individuals are another species out on display in any wildlife expedition may it be a zoo or a jungle. Loud errant groups who consider themselves superior to our wildlife swing by just to boost their pathetic egos.

Before this article turns into a rant, I better move to greener pastures!
We need to change the dialogue in our country. Let wildlife not be the business of only photographers and conservationists. The locals need to be constructively involved in our efforts to protect our heritage. Just like Nepal, we can constructively use our biggest strength, our population, as an advantage. If the number of people who feel protective towards our wild increase then the number of people who harm our wild will steadily decrease. It is a number game after all!