Survival of the fittest?

 

 

We are a nomadic clan. For generations we were known as baheliyas and have been hunting to earn a living. We know no other skill. Living in the jungle has been a way of life for us. Tigers are like cats for us. We stay in the jungle and for days our men roam around the jungle and study the routes that the animals take, especially the tiger.

Tigers fetch us good money because the buyers are readily available. A lot of business comes from the crocs as well. But for killing them we use poisonous tablets. Once the men have hunted the animals, it is the women’s job to shave the skin off, to clean it and to look for a buyer at a good price. Till the time we are in the forest, we often feed on birds like bater (quails). Our kids have learnt to mimic the voice of the bird well, which it assumes as another bird’s call and also responds. This makes it easier for us to trace them and then we hunt them with a catapult. But now animals have to be protected and hunting has been made illegal. So suddenly our means of earning a living has become illegal. The rules are so strict that most of our men are in the jail. It has been three months that we have been ostracized from our community because we have stopped hunting in the hope that the government would provide us with an alternative. But now there seems to be no source of earning from the jungle. It seems like it will take long before anything is done for us. The money in the work they offer us isn’t enough and the work is tiresome too. If we don’t get enough food to survive, we would have no other option but to go back to the community and engage in hunting, which is no more legal. Everybody thinks that the count of tigers and other animals is falling, but we can’t die of hunger for them. I’m sure you would weigh human life more than that of an animal!

BRASS TACKS

New Delhi-based nonprofit Wildlife Protection Society of India suggests that since the tiger numbers have declined, at least 141 leopards have become victims of poaching so far in 2008.

It’s not that we don’t want to settle down at one place with good amenities, but working in the forest comes easy to us and all other vocations seem difficult. My children are studying here in the school run by WWF, especially for our kids. And after living here, they now don’t want to go back to the jungle life. Though we might earn more money in what we do and there is nothing like living with one’s own community, we are still ready to settle here if the government helps. But if it takes long, we will have no choice but to resume hunting. To you all, animals must be important more than human life, but for us they are a means of living.