(IN): Preserving wildlife (Assam Tribune letter to Editor)

April 1, 2009

Preserving wildlife**

* Sir, – This has reference to the news item, “Tiger shot; kills one,

injures 2”. It is reported that a full grown Royal Bengal Tiger was shot

dead because of total failure of the administration. At this time when

wildlife is already running out of space and time we still continue to make

blunders rather than learning from the mistakes we male. The fact remains

that the administration was not able to control the situation when 1,000

plus mob surrounded the poor tiger and the administration had absolutely no

control over them. This is not the first-time that it had happened. A few

days ago I read another news item where a Veterinarian was trying to

tranquilise a leopard on the outskirts of Guwahati and there were hundreds

of people all over the place and there was total chaos everywhere. Why do we

not have a system in place where in such situations the police personnel are

better trained to handle the mob so that the expert can carry out the job of

tranquilising the animal in a proper manner and or if need be the Army

should also be involved. The only other way to take care of such situations

is to form groups of concerned people who would assist the administration

and the Forest department in making sure that the procedure is carried out

smoothly. Proper training should be given by NGOs with the help of Forest

department and the administration for the groups living on the peripheries

of the Protected Area's to help the administration to carry out the task

without any hindrance, and also to stress on the importance of saving the

animal in such a situation. Such situations are not unknown to the people.

However, we cannot let this happen again and again only to realise the fact

that we are losing our rich heritage that we are so proud of. There is no

dearth of NGOs who are working for wildlife conservation and they are always

eager to help the concerned authorities in any way possible and in such

times the authorities can also take help from the local NGO's to control the

situation. Time and again we have failed to realise the importance of

wildlife and yet later we are the only ones who repent for losing something

we are so proud of. – Your's etc., Siddhartha Kumar Gogoi, Bangalore.

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