While chatting with my mother, she told me about one of the most pressing issues being discussed in my aunt’s colony whatsapp groups.
The neighbourhood had recently seen the arrival of strange guests; ones who jumped on people’s trampolines and went for a swim in residents' water tanks.
Monkeys from a nearby railway station started travelling to residential areas in search of food. Normally, a large chunk of their daily nourishment came from scraps of food left by workers and travellers at the railway station. With the lockdown, they were forced to look elsewhere for food, leading them to the residential areas.
Stuck in a similar situation are stray dogs, pigeons and ducks across the globe, all of whom rely heavily on human beings for food. Animals who have developed relationships with humans and have come to depend on them for food are suffering immensely due to the lockdown.
The drastic changes humans have had to make with their lifestyles do not exist in isolation from the other inhabitants of this planet.
Aside from food, certain animals may also rely on human beings in regards to conservation efforts or upkeep of their habitat. Essential conservation work has taken a hit, and instances of poaching have increased in several places. For example, in Botswana, the killing of six black rhinos within a close time frame, led to government workers having them evacuated in March. Because of the lack of tourists, and fewer park rangers, it has been easier for poachers to slip inside.
It’s not all doom and gloom however.
Quiet cities and desolate streets are now being explored by those residents who had earlier been forced to hide away from human beings: urban wildlife.
While humans have been forced to stay shut up in their homes, several animals in urban areas have been given the opportunity to spread their legs, and roam freely in spaces they had already occupied, but had been pushed out of due to urban development. While the increased sightings of animals may be in part due to people having more time to observe, the sudden absence of people has allowed animals more freedom. Some of these sightings have been debunked as fake, but we have definitely seen animals come out and roam around more openly in urban areas since the lockdown. For instance, according to reports by the Bombay Natural History Society, 25% more flamingos migrated to Bombay this year.
An important thing to take away from everything that has happened with wildlife during the pandemic, is understanding our relationship with animals. We do not exist in isolation, nor do our actions. The fact that we live on this planet together means that all of our actions automatically impact those we share this space with. Understanding and analyzing what happened in the lockdown is important, and we must take this as information that we can use going forward with the environmental movement. The solution is not to get rid of us, but to understand our relationship with animals, and use that to come up with ways of coexistence. When the dust settles, one hopes that we will find ways of existing together, not separately, on this extremely crowded planet that we share.
Comments