Nature Calls
                   ___________DR. M.K.RANJITSINH

Woes of the Wild

Zoo deaths are making news like never, but there is silence over poaching which threatens to wipe out wildlife

The still continuing brouhaha over l’affaire Nandankanan reminds me of a description of the Korean War half a century ago: a right war in the wrong place.
Never ever has there been such focussed and persistent media attention and such rightful public indignation over such an issue. It has exposed to the world the faults and failures of our zoos and would hopefully, rectify the future management of zoos, make them contribute to conservation and raise a question mark over the need to create more menageries which our zoos are.

My dismay is that a great opportunity is being lost in the missing out on a far greater and incomparably more painful malady: the mismanagement of wildlife and forests, and of national parks and sanctuaries in particular. It is noteworthy that the write-ups are mostly confined to death of tigers in a single zoo. The death of five lions in the Gir Sanctuary only made headlines because of the ongoing frenzy over the zoo deaths and now nothing more is being heard of it.

In December 1999, 70 leopard skins, 18,000 leopard claws representing a thousand dead leopards, four tiger skins and 221 blackbuck skins, were seized in Khaga, Uttar Pradesh. Why no uproar then? In 1993, 400 kgs of tiger bones, 45 leopard skins, 18 tiger skins and 158 other wild animal skins were taken into custody in Delhi, while in 1998 185 kgs of ivory and ivory articles were seized in Jaipur. Small news items appeared then but who remembers now?

Thirteen tigers died in Nandankanan in a month. Horrid and unforgivable. Yet even more are being poached every year in and around some of our protected areas. Does one hear about it, does any one really care? The destruction of prey species on which the tiger, lion and leopards depend is far greater. Does one read about it, is anyone sincerely bothered about it? Our national parks and sanctuaries which constitute our best and only real hope for the survival of wildlife and nature in the country, are being ravaged through acts of omission and commission by the state governments and indeed, a number of governments are actively trying to derecognize and denotify them. Are the media and public doing anything to stop this?

In a Reply to a question in Parliament, the Minister for Environment and Forests said that between 1995 and 2000, 175 lions and 226 tigers died in Indian zoos as against 46 lions and 142 tigers in our protected areas and therefore, zoos were the ‘‘fastest agent in the galloping extinction’’, as reported by one leading daily. It is this type of faulty conclusions that one finds very galling. Firstly, while zoos have to record all deaths, it is no secret that most of the deaths in the wild are not reported. Between 1994 and 2000 the tally of seized leopard skins was 600 and of the tiger 210. These are excluding the 226 tigers reported dead by the government. Besides, the seizures constitute only a fragment of the total quantum in the illegal market. So one gets only a rough indication of the magnitude of poaching of tiger. That of other target species—leopard, deer, elephants, etc. is much higher. Secondly, there is no question of extinction of tiger in zoos—there is indeed a problem of plenty both in India and abroad. But if we persist with the present trend of destruction of the tiger’s prey and habitat, there is every likelihood of the animal getting extinct in a major part of even its present day shrunken distribution. Yet this predicament is precisely what we don’t worry about.

Thirdly, let’s get the record straight. The death of a captive tiger, however abhorrent, is no loss to conservation; the loss of a wild tiger is and how. Our captive tigers cannot be released in the wild and in zoos they serve no real conservation purpose.

A couple of tigers in a large well appointed cage would serve a greater educational purpose than 20 cavernous tigers cringing in cubicles. So let us not equate wild tigers with captive ones in the conservation scenario. Zoos are not an end in itself but only a means to an end—contribution to conservation in the wild.

I am certainly not suggesting that the decimation of tigers in Nandankanan is welcome, just as one does not welcome any human deaths as a step towards population reduction. But one does advocate family planning. The same is essential for many burgeoning zoo populations.

The politicians have already failed us in conservation; the bureaucrats are following their footsteps. Our only hope is the judiciary, and an optimism that there will be an awakening amongst at least a segment of the people. The media has done a fantastic job in arousing public opinion over the death of tigers in zoos. Can it take it further by arousing ire and interest in even a greater and more crucial scam—the death of tigers and of others in the wild and the death of the wilderness itself?
If the media fails to achieve this, it would have failed not only conservation but also the country.

(Dr M. K. RanjitSinh
drafted and piloted the Wildlife Protection Act
and was the first director of Wildlife Preservation
for India His column will appear every fortnight.)

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