Wild Boar, Urban Development & Wildlife!

 

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“The future of wildlife and the habitat that they depend on is being destroyed. It is time to make nature and all the beauty living within it our priority.” …  Paul Oxton

“Urbanization in India is a slow but sure death for her villages and villagers” … Mahatma Gandhi.

 

Two quotes, both about making us aware about our duty towards others while we make progress & both personalities have a common platform as both have worked rather, say started their career on social front after working in South Africa, though Paul is from developed western world & Gandhiji is from underdeveloped Asia. And maybe that’s why if Paul warns us about our duty towards wildlife, then Bapu warns us about humans which themselves are a species different from the so-called developed & urban humans i.e., villagers. There is a similarity between these two categories, though Paul speaks about wildlife & species other than humans & Bapu refers to the humans yet these humans are a different species on the front of lifestyle & habitat than we human the urban humans & the humans which Babu has referred includes farmers, tribes & natives of villages who mostly live along with the nature at respective places! So, actually both of these are warning us about the same thing, while you progress or develop don’t forget (read as neglect) nature, which includes humans, wildlife, forests & every such thing & if Bapu has told us this nearly seventy years back then Paul is telling this thing today also, that’s the irony of our so-called growth or development!

I know, this is boring stuff & you may think it's going on the same lines of how we are doing wrong things under the name of development & destructing nature, as news papers are filled with news of how forests are getting reduced & man-animal conflicts & how we are destroying nature including water bodies & hills blah blah blah! And the very same news-papers prints full page advertises of the products which are cause of all the news they only publish about nature destruction which includes buildings (read as flats, offices etc), automobiles, oil & gas & many such, so what’s use of reading all this crap about save nature or wildlife whatever, & I will not blame you! As not just the news-papers but entire society (read as the world) survives on the money which is generated by all these real estate & automobile or oil or say every industry as from that money we get our food, we get our clothes, we get our shelter which we call home & all perks or say comforts of our life, so what if some wildlife gets hampered in the process! Agreed & this is exactly what Paul & Bapu has warned us about as because some developed humans can do such things for comfort then who will think about making others lives too a bit comfortable or let us put in other way, as no harm in making our own life comfortable but what if it’s built on death of thousands of other lives, is that comfort still worth, is the question I want to ask all of us, that’s why the sharing! If we consider ourselves developed & intelligent, then whose responsibility is it to find a solution where not every but most lives can strike the comfort along with ours, that is why this sharing!

 

Now if you agree with me & willing to read ahead then the ignition point of this urban vs wild sharing (that way everyday there is some ignition point) is a news (as usual) of death of an auto rickshaw passenger in outskirts of Pune city due to collision with a wild boar & two other are severely injured! The news was on the third page of a local daily & quite big as that way every day at least five to six people lose lives in road accidents in & around Pune city alone but it's usually human vs human collision, not with some wild animal like a wild boar! As how the stupid wild boar can do that, as first, it has no right to come on the roads built by the humans for their travelling, second, why can’t it blow horn or give indicator light before its intercepting some human’s vehicle & lastly, who gave it a right to push the smaller vehicle aside which caused death of a human, the wild boar must be sentenced for minimum seven years for negligent driving! And then this may be first of its kind experience in our smart developing city of Pune but in south India, on highways regularly wild elephants have been reported to chase cars & even damaged them injuring the commuters in many cases, all these wild animals should be punished under motor vehicle act, I wonder how some NGO has not filed an PIL for doing so yet! And if this isn’t enough, in the rural of Pune District (Junnar, Narayangaon), leopards are troubling the road travellers attacking on two wheelers, making them run for their life & getting injured to vehicle skidding the chase from these stupid leopards, who seems to be playing this chase game for their fun time, what else!

 

Sorry Guys, sarcasm (and I am full of it) is the only way I can express myself as keeping all due respect to the lives lost of humans in all above incidences yet this is outcome of neglecting the warning which Bapu has given us decades back is what I feel & to remind ourselves about it, this sharing! As, Leopards, elephants, wild boars, tigers attacking humans, (thankfully tigers not around Pune yet) so what next, whales attacking ships or eagles attacking aeroplanes & choppers; when we will learn that it is our relentless attacks on all these animals’ homes (read as habitats) because of which we are witnessing their retaliation for their survival! As a man gets killed in an accident with a wild boar it becomes big news but a wild boar is killed under some heavy vehicle then it's not even news worth printing, is a bitter fact! As imagine instead of their auto rickshaw, had there been a truck or some bigger vehicle & yet the wild boar would have collided with that vehicle as like you & me it has not taken a driving licence (one more offence of the stupid animal) nor it has been taught traffic rules & what would have been outcome of the collision then, the wild boar would have been died, that is all! Unfortunately, it collided with a rickshaw causing a human die yet I am curious nobody even bothered (whom am I fooling) what must have happened with that wild boar! I know, many (read as most humans) will ask that had the deceased human being been my family member would I have written this sharing, & I must confess maybe not but that doesn’t change the facts, which we must think on, right? As the deceased person’s family must be angry with the wild boar & may be seeking revenge on the entire species or at least the family of the wild boars living in that neighbourhood & that is a natural tendency of revenge. But if the same law of nature is to be applied then what about thousands of deaths of the wild animals which die every day due to our encroachment in their home, on whom & how they should seek revenge, is the question I want to ask via my sharing! Well, just a few months back there was news about some 12 odd blackbucks losing their lives after they jumped from a flyover on Pune-Solapur highway in a panic as they accidently came on the road & couldn’t find a way out from it! Again, fools these blackbucks are, what was there to get so panicked of some concrete highway, they could have waited till the road is empty or can’t they read the Emergency Numbers displayed on all such highways, they could have dialled that number & asked for help, what was the need to jump of the flyover (Sarcasm)!

 

The real culprit or say the reason for such incidents is, we have lost nearly 6.50 lakh hectares of forest cover & this is the official figure so you can imagine what must be the actual figure as in many places the people (and the govt) don’t even realize this is forest so who cares if it’s gone! And it's not just the wild boars but leopards, elephants, jackals, wolves, chinkaras & thousands of such species are losing their home everyday & whom we should blame, as in our so-called developments even millions of humans have to settle in illegal homes which are worse than hell, in such scene who cares from some four-legged animal’s homes! What Bapu has said is because of disparity in the lifestyle, villagers are running towards urban centres like Pune causing total chaos on the balance of habitats, both for humans & wildlife! As on one side forests are becoming the softest target for encroachment then the urban centres like Pune are getting overloaded due to migration from all around, causing destruction of wildlife here! In forests like tadoba, if the population of the tigers is increasing is a good sign, then this increased population doesn’t have enough forest cover which is resulting in an increase in man-animal conflicts causing deaths of humans as well tigers (read as wildlife)! In south Indian forests big animals like Elephants & Indian Gaurs which need large areas as well as food, are the worst sufferers & outcome is, more attacks by them on human settlements! And on top of it, with due respect for their efforts, the forests depts’ (all over the country) are poorly funded making them toothless & clawless tiger when it comes to protecting wildlife, is a fact with our Super Mai Bapp (Central Govt) needs to understand & act up on it!

 

The forest dept in the wild boar & leopard attack prone areas has issued a circular for the residents in the localities not to move around after sun down or late night but how to implement or enforce this, we do not have any answer! In a city like Pune where in broad daylight every age group person who has got a driving licence jumps the red signal if a traffic cop is not around & we are expecting people to follow such a guideline of not use roads at night by a toothless forest dept, whom we are fooling but ourselves! And for how many nights people will sit at home & not to use the road as the answer lies in giving proper habitats to the wildlife & not in making some weird regulations which won’t be able to be followed neither by the humans nor by the wild animals! The cause of animal-human conflict is, not just our inability to manage the wildlife but our poor understanding of development which neither gives good homes to the humans but takes away whatever homes the wildlife has & this fact we need to accept, if we want to make wildlife survive! Till then the god also can’t save the wild boars, leopards, elephants & the humans who are forced to get into conflicts with all such species, amen!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at You Tube link below..

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s

 

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https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2023/01/defining-good-home-real-estate-in-2023.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html

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