Two youths ensnare deer, kill it, split the meat to consume some and sell [the] rest. To have to read this in The Hindu recently, the article being accompanied by a gruesome photograph… not at all like that on the left, and on Ugadi, was sad.
Some points. The crime has been investigated by the anti-poaching squad of the Forest Department. The University will let the law take its course and allow civil authorities to take whatever action that is appropriate. According to the squad officials, the spotted deer was trapped, killed and the meat eaten in part and sold in part. A case will be booked against the perpetrators under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, and they face a three year jail term and a fine of Rs 25,000.
Too little. The spotted deer, Chital, is a species protected under the Wildlife Protection Act. So when the Hindu says The sprawling university campus with lots of green cover has a presence of wild life, the irony is not lost on us- who knows how much will last and for how long.
There is an urgent need for us in the University community to take steps to ensure that this act does not go unpunished, especially since the perpetrators are from within. This is the most difficult part of it… When those who live in this wonderful campus and partake of an environment that others can only envy from afar, how can we tolerate such actions that destroy the environment in this most dastardly manner. Clearly also, this is just the first time that the duo have been apprehended, and surely not that first time that they have caught and killed deer- it seems that the remaining meat was stored in the home refrigerator. If indeed it was just the duo- from what little one can glean from the newspapers, there may have been more persons involved.
I know that many of you care deeply about the campus and its environment. Please act.
Outright killing of a wild animal is one thing, but we also kill other animals slowly. The vanishing wildlife on our campus is evidence of either neglect not so benign, or of our introducing other species that change the balance. Feral dogs and cats, for instance. And, of course, seeing animals on campus these past few days that provide “rides” has not been much fun, I must confess. I don’t really see the need for this in a campus festival, and particularly in as environmentally sensitive a campus as ours. Or is this just an illusion that we care? My heart says NO! but my head says maybe…
Another act of poaching that should not go unnoticed. A research scholar has been nabbed for identity theft, stealing debit/credit card numbers and pins, and using this to make online purchases. Read all about it, again in today’s The Hindu. And this also has points of irony- we have just put together a one-year diploma course in Cyber Security, to be launched shortly…
Sadly, this is us.
sir recently the university workers are burning the forest. its really not good.
Sir,
I could recollect several other instances, published in Telugu news dailies. A reputed movie artist was under bars for hunting a black buck which is very dear to the Bishnoi community of Rajasthan. Please chalk out an action plan for protection of campus bio diversity.
Prasad
It is not only the spotted deer or endangered species which we have to protect… it is an open secret in UoH… stray dogs are been killed for meat. Unless and until we curb these activities on campus, we cannot say “UoH has taken necessary measures to protect wild life.”
Dear Sir, I am so dismayed and disgusted by the way in which a few tarnish the good reputation of our University by involving in heinous crimes. The two youths, who killed the deer, have to be punished, and the research scholar, who involved in the Cyber-crime, has to be dismissed from our university.
I am sure we all know that our national bird, peacock / peafowl are protected under Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and its hunting / killing is strictly prohibited and punishable. Thanks to Prof. Gurubaksh Singh, we have pockets of the campus provide a thriving habitat for several peacock families. Unfortunately, I have seen traps being setup and caught birds picked up a couple of times, painfully from far distances. May be its time we have a volunteer UH ranger force put in place or at least a complaint registration (via phone / email) cell.
NKV
This is a real shame. I’m sad and angry. The sign of wildlife disappearing is alarming. Till 2 years back, night time is when you saw wild boars criss-crossing the roads, hares hopping around like the earth belongs to them. It’s such a joy to just have spotted them. Nowadays, nightlife’s been really boring… what a sad state.
As you said, “the perpetrators are from within”. They have always been from within. The question is: How many of us really care?…and even if we do… do we have a support from within?
The Anti-poaching squad came to the campus in December 2008 too (I’ve attached a link to that incident below). My personal experience during that time tells me that authorities simply don’t care. Their sleep is more precious than helping to take perpetrators to task. What do we do is the question. It’s time we start to think and act collectively to protect, preserve and revitalize what we still have before it is too late.
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-12-23/hyderabad/27918988_1_wild-boar-anti-poaching-squad-security-guard
It’s indeed so sad….. Don’t know when so called educated people will realise their responsibilities…..
I know this is a little off topic but I’d like to bring to your notice, the fact that students from the SIP program openly drink alcohol on campus and sometimes also smoke weed. Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed several students drinking off bottles of beer openly while walking around campus. While I am not personally against the consumption of alcohol, I do believe that as a University some sanctity for the sacredness of this institution must remain and while it this University’s policy to bend backward to meet the needs of these students, to allow them to use this as a sort of Woodstock festival while other students look on is disgraceful.
I hope you take due recognition of this problem before other students start to blindly ape the white man and we have more anti social problems
Regards
A concerned student.
Sir
The practice of killing wild animals has been going on openly in the campus. Seen snakes killed by students and security people alike – object to it and they laugh at you. All this when in the campus you have an expert snake catcher(Anji Reddy). People don’t give us time to call him and kill the poor animal to show their heroics.
When I first spoke about spotting a deer in the campus to a visiting alumni, he had this remark to make : ‘We used to see deer, hares and wild boar so much that it wasn’t a surprise at all – today you just don’t see them even at night !! ‘. We should ask IIT and Anna University how they conserve their wildlife. Last time I visited their campus, a large group of spotted deer numbering around 50 just walked along with us, not at all scared of humans. It showed their trust that they won’t be harmed.
Given the way we dispose garbage, burn forests and the wastage of water (leaking taps esp. in hostels), we have become an environment disfriendly people. Time we changed that and led by example.
A concerned UoHiian.
Each one of us, directly or indirectly responsible for all this. We want Bhagat Singh to be born in neighbors house and not ours. Unless stringent actions are taken and proper safeguards are put in place nothing better can be expected. While punishing somany considerations come up, and the culprits are let off scotfree. The punishment should work as a deterrent then only we can expect some improvement.
“World is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but of those who lookon & do nothing.”- Albert Einstein
I woul also like to quote the following from Dr A P J Abdul Kalam’s speech:
“When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? ‘It’s the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone fore-go my sons’ rights to a dowry.’ So who’s going to change the system?
What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.”
So we were in the news for all the wrong reasons. It is indeed a shame, especially the second item. Academics is a great place to be in (no, no, I’m not referring to any lofty ideals- important and meaningful to a lot of people like us but) for the simple fact that this job or occupation does not offer much to its practitioners to loot public money. There are corrupted presences here too though-there was a very nice write up on plagiarism some time back, `stealing ideas’, to put it rather crudely, but stealing things-not just pocketing some fancy item in a mall which might be an impulsive act or a perceived show of bravado by an immature kid-unpardonable though, but rather innocent compared to this kind of ‘Method Stealing’ which our competent fellowship holding research scholar has carried out.
My response may seem over the top. “After all, your Univ. is a part of society where all this happens all the time; its just a petty crime and should be dealt with as one” is an extremely reasonable sounding reply but NO, this profession HAS to be immunized against certain diseases that are abundantly prevalent in larger society and we too, in turn, immunize people whom we influence-our students against these ills, otherwise there is no hope or purpose. Cynicism is not a good thing always, it is very bad many times. I hope the University responds to this in a way that conveys its intolerance to such deviations.
An animal was killed that day for meat and from the comments I see that such things have happened many times. I have stopped overenthusiastic workers (hired by contractors to chop overgrown branches of trees on campus) from felling trees several times. In fact I am aware of quite a few “Missing Trees”. Why not have an ‘Environmental Watchdog’- a large absolutely non-political collectorate of volunteers of students, teachers, staff, people living on campus to look after plant and animal life on campus. To start with the entire campus can be divided into some manageable number of pieces and groups of 15-20 members of the collective be entrust a piece to first completely survey the piece allotted to them and prepare a data base of every tree and every animal spotted in their piece, Google Earth is a great tool to manage this. After the survey is completed– which may take 3 to 4 months- the same groups can revisit their sites say once a month and report missing, dead, decayed flora and also noticeable decline in animals spotted, and then collectively decide actions. Some activities require immense volunteerism and environment protection is one such.
Two bird poachers (catchers) were caught on camera on 29th march 2012, at around 7.45AM. I have loaded the pictures at this site: https://picasaweb.google.com/109956720517620671619/March292012?authuser=0&feat=directlink
The bird turned out to be smarter this time…this time around.
This part of HCU campus is between Jawahar Navodaya school & Aparna Sarovar
Sir it is really extremely shame not for us only but for all the community who loves to flora and fauna. So to punish them is one side but our concern is that to prevent the remaining. So I am requesting you u to arrange few water system particular in summer in side the forest.
Sir,
This is not the first time it is happening at uoh . it is clearly the administrations attitude towards the the university biodiversity in the past . many cases had reported directly to the concerned officials in the ad block ,they never responded . In 2011 march the check dam water body near staff quarters had undergone serious pollution and i reported it directly to the AP governments task force when they called up university officials for confirmation . they replied as if they are from space . around April the workers will burn the bushes and forests – killing a huge number of birds and insects.