A viral video of birds and hatchlings falling to death when a tamarind tree was felled for widening of a road in Malappuram district of Kerala caused much distress. Some viable alternatives or precautions are to be chalked out to avoid casualties of such nature.
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A mother elephant was electrocuted while entering a rubber plantation abutting the forest tract in the Palode range in Thiruvanan- thapuram district during 2021. The estate owner was booked for killing the animal at night by charging the metal wire used to hang rubber sheets.
The year-and-a-half-old female calf’s vain attempts to wake its mother up while suckling the teats of the carcass was another video that caused a lot of pain.
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In both cases, humans acted unmindful of the sufferings of other creatures which are equal claimants to the bounties of earth, and denied them the right to live.
Hapless animals are unaware of artificial boundaries or the everlasting human quest for a better life.
At the same time, a farmer may have grievances of massive crop depredation by wild elephants and the paltry sums received as compensation for crop damage. Or a road contractor would try to take refuge in the stipulations in the agreement which deprived him of the leeway to act on conscience. However, whether the hardships confronted by the aggrieved parties would empower them to annihilate fellow creatures at will against the existing laws is the moot point.
This is notwithstanding the fact that Kerala had gone the extra mile in empowering heads of local bodies to act as honorary wildlife wardens invoking provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 to order shooting of wild pigs (listed in Schedule III) dead in the larger interest of farmers as these were wreaking havoc on agricultural fields.
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