I would fork the blog in parts coz TIGER is such a big issue Icannot even use a lower case when I write TIGER.
Well role of tiger in nature is unquestioned majestic and something that everybody knows. He rules the food chain or as nature would say food chain rules him. Either ways for the food chain to be a functional system as it has been for several years everyone would agree Tiger has to be a part of it. If not there is no food chain then there is no law of nature there is no NATURE. I dont think many people understand the magnitude of the previous sentence but my heart weeps when I even imagine myself with a place where there will be no nature. No Trees, No deers hopping around, No grass on which the a young dear can play,No TIGER cub who can learn from catching that fawn and learn to survive because the basic law of nature, SURVIVAL, will be defied. I hope I dont live to see that day because it will be an experience with excruciating pain to see my mom(nature) in such a state where she will give into the bad deeds of her own children especially children like Mr.B.Mujumdar and his team (u will know who i m talking about). Well I cannot stress much on the importance of TIGER because I am not that intelligent to understand it and probably I think with heart when it comes to TIGER or NATURE. But i love mother nature and TIGER is no doubt one of her most favorite sons.
What we do today is what decides how bright and how long our descendants would enjoy the pamper mother nature has to offer. I somewhere feel change is the law of nature and I wish this change that is happening in our mindset is not her way of punishing us for our deeds. We are recently watching news channels and media covering an ordered unplanned unscientific encounter of a TIGER (or as they said first a TIGRESS) at Talodi. I come from a city called TIGER capital of India and a conservator with high post orders for a hunt of a tigress in a city where most of the naturalists are focusing on ways to save this majestic creature. My concern is not over his decision to hunt her down. Even if she was a man-eater there are better ways of handling the situation. Just because you see 100 people losing their near and dearones you cannot possibly lose your mind on a sensitive issue like TIGER. I know and understand that this is easily said by me then experienced by Mr. Mujumdar but I feel not losing his mind in such situation is what he is being paid for. I condemn this step! and would like to emphasize on some quick short points which i felt went wrong during the operation.
Absence of scientists or conservationist with the sharp shooter teams. No attempt being made to tranquilise the tiger. No time taken to confirm if this was the tiger to be shot. No respect for the majestic animal shown firing 38 rounds of ammunition for this single tiger. Skining the TIGER in Public (thats seriously what i say being out of your mind). Expressing no regret over having to kill that TIGER. One of the most important issue bowing down to LOCAL POLITICAL PRESSURE.
What I feel and by what I understand about rural India, this step has triggered serious rather nefarious state of mind in rural India which was on a rise lately and now has been cemented further that in case of a human animal conflict kill the animal. Mr. Mujumdar the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) (ha! made a mockery of that position actually) I hope that people understand that between the animal and human only we can think about saving the animal if the animal could think he would never attack us. He has been commissioned to be on the top of the food chain and survive like that by the supreme power GOD or NATURE or the Oracle who designed this Earth for us. Only we can understand and plan to save her. She has the resilience and if given a chance she will bounce back (sorry Radhika used ur sentence with a bit of change in it but its a marvelous sentence). I m deeply hurt by what Mr. Mujumdar or his team said "We happy and relieved that we killed the tiger". I doubt if he deserves that post anymore. He should have said he regretted that he had to kill the TIGER to say the least of the outcome this horrendous decision. If that was not enough he ordered to skin the tiger publically and then burn him so that he could stuff it up and keep it in Nagpur museum...Sure Mr. Mujumdar and his team, that is where my kids would see him if people like you rule this very important part of the roost and I wont like that, nobody would. I want my children to see TIGER or rather feel his presence when they go in a jungle and see a perfect ecosystem. That was a pathetic statement and I would never ever forget that. Its the most hopeless mindset of a conservator I have come through.
What Can We Do!
As many people we know and discuss this with we should understand that this step has to be condemned sharply. Send him letters not with wrath or anger but with a emotion that tells him that he could have planned it better. I hope someday he realizes what he did was not right.
But my concern is not this wrong decision its the effect it has had on the Rural India and the effect that it is going to have on the most magnificent creature ever to bless Earth, Asia, India, Nagpur. I desperately want to nullify the bad effects of this and i am sure everyone reading this blog does. I would love to see a community and I know they exist in suderbans who live with tigers by adjusting their lifestyles rather than expecting a socially dumb creature like a TIGER to modify himself. Everyone would love to see a Rural India that LIVES with TIGER and can LEAVE the jungle for him if necessary.
May the soul of the Killed Creature rest in peace. Forgive us Mom we did a mistake again!
And please show us a way to live with this reality of being a community which couldn't stop the creature from being skinned. I hope you will give us a chance to make up for it. Please do!
Nyways
keep smiling guys the hope is not dead until the last pair is alive!
keep tryin
Anurag Prabhakar Ghatole
if someone wants to read further!just a short addition
One of my friends who works as a conservationist said the right way that this should have been done was. Having a team of scientists with the sharp shooters. Tranquilizing the creature when spotted. capturing and monitoring him for his behaviour in a cage and then if it was confirmed that he was indeed the maneater or could not survive in a caged environment shoot him down and then burn him publically as it is normally done.
and she also added that the genepool of the tiger is dead the minute you capture and put him in a cage or a zoo. So the tiger would not be a source of the wild genes too, as some of us might think.
I think thats logical enough but I would ask if the community that it was attacking was not a huge one why do we not read of any efforts taken to rehabilitate the village Tiger is a big issue and people would not mind taking issue to relocate the village.
some people might say
Thats not logical coz he might attack them or any other village again well I would say so might anyother Tiger who has turned maneater and if reports were to be believed there are more in the area so do we keep on killing them?? efforts were not taken due to some reasons like the political pressure which shows democracy being defeated. I have started losing my belief in the word democracy. But anyways I think TIGER should on top of the priority list. And it going to be on top of all our lists...I believe we can save HIM! and I will always believe that and work for it anyway possible.
keep smiling
Anurag
