Wildlife is fine, until humans decide to step in. Battered by humans over the millennia, even today, it is the self-appointed preservationists who are adding to the damage their ancestors have caused to wildlife. I crave leave to expand later.
Ms. Jane Goodall is my ideal for a true lover of wildlife, a scientist and conservationist in the real sense of the word.
She is a good human.
My first objection is to our humans’ definitions of “intelligence”, and closely allied is our way of trying to judge everybody and everything, by our own wonky standards. I was looking at a group of so-called scientists studying the intelligence level in monkeys. They had managed to procure a few hapless creatures to justify their own employment, but that’s another story. Monkeys were asked to put colored square pegs in square holes and round ones in round and triangular ones on triangular ones, and so on. The monkeys who were able to do it were labeled as ‘having the intelligence of a three-year-old human’. There was no mention about the monkeys who could not accomplish this Einsteinian feat (other futile exercises monkeys have been subjected to include finding a hidden marble, or pressing appropriate areas of a touch-screen), or who merely considered us humans too stupid to oblige by doing an act which was of no consequence to them. Now, let’s examine the flip side. Let’s have a group of monkeys catch hold of a few full-grown humans and put them to the test to see how well these humans can leap from tree to tree. Obviously, the humans will fail miserably, by monkey standards. Now, the monkeys should conclude that even as adults, humans do not possess the skills of even a baby monkey. Now, these scientists will argue that this would be a test of physical skill, as opposed to mental skill. OK. Let the most physically competent human athlete try and come even close to what a monkey can achieve in the branches. Similarly, are these scientists trying to say that trapeze artistes do not require any mental skills to perform their feats?
We humans have ruthlessly destroyed most of the habitat of wild animals. We are responsible for their destruction – and we humans are such hypocrites (or, troubled by our consciences) that we are now declaring certain species as endangered and are trying to ‘protect’ them. To add insult to injury, our TV ads never talk about looking after animals for their love, but only so that we save ourselves from destruction if these animals are not allowed to perish. Oh, the selfish irony!
We humans talk big about ‘an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth’, and cleverly twist our words adding ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Even if both these great phrases of wisdom were to be applied in respect of what we have done to our fellow creatures, the human race doesn’t stand a whiff of a chance of survival. Let the herds of rhinos, elephants, and big cats freely roam our streets and do what comes naturally to them. After all, we trespassed into their territory and wreaked havoc with them! But, no, we merely try and atone for our sins in a pseudo-intellectual manner and try and fool nature in the same way we have been fooling God for ages.
Again, there a such a lot of hype being created about preservation of wildlife and stopping cruelty to animals, but I think that’s reserved for the big cats, crocs, bears and other larger, or, more exotic animals. Else, what in the world can explain a large ear being grown on the back of a mouse? Or, other terrible drugs being tried out, legally and surreptitiously, on all kinds of animals, in the name of science?
In fact, a horrifying programme I happened to see on one of the nature channels was directly advocating the killing of elephants – for their survival?! (Who make financial killings out of these murders is not clear so far.) Yet again, there is a tourist resort where male baboons have to be relocated since ‘they are aggressive towards tourists’ while protecting their females and babies!! Why are humans trying to play God? Nature has its own ways of balancing things out – if there is an excess of any one kind of species, Nature will take care of it, as appropriate. The weak and disabled are automatically weeded out. The irony here is that we humans try and play the good Samaritan by going all out to care for other sick, weak or disabled humans instead of letting them be dealt with by the process of natural selection But, we try and regulate the population of animals or feed them gruel through droppers. If at all, these billions of humans, the large proportion of whom simply are surplus need to be curtailed. Let this senseless slaughter of hapless animals stop NOW!
What can I say about the bunch of hobos who straight-jacket alligators in nets, and then proceed to play tag with it, ostensibly to take ‘scientific’ measurements of its nostrils; then, transport it away from its near and dear ones to an alien swamp, with a jute bag tied around its head “to reduce stress”!? Or, even those pet owners who teach (train) puppies to roll over on demand.
I was watching rather amusedly at a group of bird lovers releasing doves, making them mingle by firing shots at them, and then, marveling when these doves found their way back home an x number of miles away. Tell me, if you were to be left at any place away from home, even you would be able to find your way back, unless you were an imbecile. I mean, you would ask for directions, hitch a ride, or whatever and duly return to hearth. Why do we consider this task to be so stupendous for animals, who have been around much longer than we have, evolved far more efficiently, and that too, in an area which is one of the keys to survival. The know-it-alls may argue that a lion left 2000 miles away from its home would never make it back – obviously – humans along the way would ensure that.
These scientists don’t even stop at playing with their hypotheses on non-humans. Kids are made to go through tortuous weeks of wearing some device, and randomly altering their natural playing, relaxing and working times in a hare-brained effort to prove how athletic activity afftects their eating habits. If a kid was forced to play outdoors for six hours, he would be too pooped to be able to eat after that (notwithstanding that he would not be able to play basketball and eat at the same time, as opposed to when watching TV), and in this monitored environment, would prefer to rest before being subjected to another day of pointless gruelling by twisted adults.
I greatly enjoy watching films on wildlife, until they try and insinuate their narrow hypotheses on all creatures of God.