Wildlife worries
The theft of deer from in Bahawalpur raises issues about how seriously we take conservation of animals.
The theft of somewhere between four to seven deer from the Lal Sohnara Park in Bahawalpur raises issues about how seriously we take conservation of animals. In this case, rather rarely, a serious effort seems to have been made to locate the animals. One has been recovered, a case registered and an arrest made. It is clear there was inside involvement. In many other cases, at resorts intended to preserve wildlife, the entire exercise has been reduced to a joke. The Safari Park in Lahore, where tigers and lions kept in a ‘natural’ setting are intended to be the star attraction, has deteriorated quickly due to neglect. Several big cats are reported over the years to have died in captivity. Wildlife preservation centres in the Galiyat area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province consist in many cases of little more than a few bedraggled animals in cages and most zoos in the country fail to meet anything approaching international standards. At some sites in KP, conservation has again gone amiss, with too many carnivorous species released into areas where they have little to eat — and as such creating a dangerous situation where they begin preying on humans.
This is a considerable misfortune. Pakistan houses a wide variety of animal species, some of them on the endangered list. These include snow leopards, the green sea turtles that visit Karachi beaches and the houbara bustard. We owe it to our future generations to take conservation far more seriously, put in place a plan to run wildlife resorts along more meaningful lines and preserve natural habitats. Unless we do this, we may find ourselves losing more and more of our natural heritage, in a cycle that makes our country a poorer place and contributes to the degradation of environment that we see taking place everywhere. We need to do far more to educate people about the need to protect wildlife and ensure that the reserves that have been set up for this purpose truly perform this role, rather than acting to lure in poachers and thieves who act with the connivance of staff.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 30th, 2011.
This is a considerable misfortune. Pakistan houses a wide variety of animal species, some of them on the endangered list. These include snow leopards, the green sea turtles that visit Karachi beaches and the houbara bustard. We owe it to our future generations to take conservation far more seriously, put in place a plan to run wildlife resorts along more meaningful lines and preserve natural habitats. Unless we do this, we may find ourselves losing more and more of our natural heritage, in a cycle that makes our country a poorer place and contributes to the degradation of environment that we see taking place everywhere. We need to do far more to educate people about the need to protect wildlife and ensure that the reserves that have been set up for this purpose truly perform this role, rather than acting to lure in poachers and thieves who act with the connivance of staff.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 30th, 2011.