Tuesday 29 March 2011

Black Panther


In the most horrifying act ever to threaten wildlife conservation, a leopard was burnt alive on 23rd march. I request all active NGO's to initiate campaigns advocating the enforcement of 'shoot at sight' for every wildlife criminal, no matter how poor or how rich, minister, poacher or villager. Wildlife is running out of time and we cannot afford to adopt a casual approach to such heinous acts. Only measures as extreme as 'shooting at sight' will ensure a safer future for our wildlife. It has worked in Kaziranga, it will work everywhere else if applied.
The following text and image about this incident are as reported by the WPSI-
India's shame - leopard burnt to death




On Wednesday, 23 March 2011, a leopard mauled three people from Dhamdhar village in Adnala Range of Kalagarh Forest Division, Corbett Tiger Reserve in the state of Uttarakhand. The leopard took shelter and was trapped inside a cattle shed in the village. The Forest Department team arrived and managed to tranquilise the leopard, and put it inside a cage. But the moment they started to transport the cage to the nearest range office at Rathuwadhab, they were surrounded by a mob of about 400 angry villagers who seized the cage and started attacking the caged leopard using iron rods, sickles and stones. The mob then doused the caged leopard with kerosene and burnt it alive in the presence of helpless forest and police officials. A postmortem revealed that the leopard was not a man-eater. Ten people, including two women, have been booked for the crime under the the IPC and WPA, of which two people from Dhamdhar village were arrested on 25 March.

21 comments:

  1. I had read about this earlier and, while it was heartrending, it also exposes the toothlessness of a department empowered with protecting our forests and wildlife.
    Lovely cartoon, as always. I'm a fan!

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  2. glad you liked the cartoon beej..thanks a lot

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  3. all these humans (are they really?)should be burnt alive :(

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  4. and every time some action is taken against these mobs, some 'human rights activist' springs up in their defense.

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  5. shame..... and worriedd... "education" thats the answer...

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  6. Ashish Kothari3 March 2012 at 11:34

    While this kind of act can by no means be condoned (it is horrifying), when you advocate "shoot at sight" for wildlife criminals, you might want to be careful. All of us who consume enormous quantities of electricity, paper, minerals, fuels etc in our urban lifestyles, are part of wildlife destruction....we just don't do it in visibly heinous ways like his burning, but we do it as effectively, if not more. The biggest threat to wildlife in the coming future is climate change, and it is caused by the rich of the world, not the poor. Once again, this is NOT to condone such actions by whoever does them, but pl. turn the spotlight on ourselves also.

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  7. Thanks for the feedback, Ashish. You do have a very valid point there. It's not like I am only directing my satire towards the rural. A lot of my cartoons speak about climate change and how WE indulge in its aggravation. Shoot-at-sight has proved effective in curbing poaching as we have seen in Kaziranga. Imagine if it is employed in tiger reserves across the country. Don't you think that way we would at least be able to guarantee a certain degree of protection to wildlife and prevent such gory incidents from happening again?

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  8. I don't understand the connection of shoot at sight for poaching with this incident. This is not an incident of poaching, this seems like a terrible consequence of huge fury and vengeance of a mob at the pain of losing 3 human lives. Penalties might only help to a certain extent, we need to look deeper into the reasons for such incidents. I have seen villagers accept death of their animals from tiger attacks, but loss of human lives is another issue. The incidents of leopards coming into villages are only going to rise with increasing contest for spaces unless there is a drastic change in aspirations for lifestyles (which is where Ashish's point also comes in).

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  9. People are quickly becoming more insance every year. I weep

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  10. Been feeling sick after seeing this, though I have shared it with some of my friends.

    Deepa.

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  11. How can people be so heartless!?!

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  12. how is this possible???? can this be proof that man is the most barbarous creature ever to walk on earth??? I m so sorry, its very painful to see this.

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  13. M stressed after seeing this..

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  15. Wanna burn each person like they did to leopard,

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  16. Yes, this is the overall feeling that remains: watching this (and I saw the video - it was terribly cruel) it makes us feel ashamed of being human.

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  17. I beg everybody, please, sign the active petition here! http://www.greenpeacex.in/petitions/leopard-burned-alive-in-uttarkhand-india-please-do-something

    This crime should not be left unpunished! Leopards are NOT man eaters! They can attack humans if they meet them and there is no way out for the animals to escape! The only exception is a sick or injured animal, which can not hunt! That witnesses ONLY that something should be done with the control of HUMAN population, who eats its way into the wildlife habitats more and more and has the audacity to blame the wildlife for that!!!! They offer their livestock to leopards, because they take it to the leopards' territory, and carnivores just behave as carnivores, not more than that!

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