Animals enjoying freedom
Man has been put in his place, at long last. While humans are having lockdown blues, which are not likely to go away anytime soon, animals which were in hiding for fear of cruel bipeds are now enjoying unbridled freedom, which they richly deserve.
A report we publish, today, says Albania’s pink flamingos and curly pelicans are flourishing in lagoons, thanks to Covid-19, which has forced humans, who pollute water and air, and disturb the world, to remain indoors. Animals have been sighted even in cities in some parts of the world. We have recently seen heartwarming pictures of a gaze of raccoons scurrying about, in the Central Park, New York, a herd of sika deer in Nara, Japan, a sounder of pigs in Haifa, Israel, a paddling of mallards in Paris, a tribe of mountain goats in the Welsh town of Llandudno, a peacock in Dubai and a herd of fallow deer in East London.
Whoever would have thought, a few moons ago, such rare, pleasing sights would ever be possible? The curious critters, straying into the newly opened-up terrain, must be feeling sorry for the bipeds inhabiting the concrete jungles.
Humans get depressed when they have to stay at home, together with their loved ones, for a few weeks. Has anyone ever paused to think how depressed the dumb animals, forcibly removed from their families and natural habitats, and kept in zoos, are? We fought quite a battle, about a decade ago, to prevent a baby elephant from being separated from his mother, in Pinnawala, and donated to a temple. Sadly, our efforts failed.
Some people are so depressed due to being confined to their own homes that they have turned to alienists to get over their blues, we are told. But nobody give a tinker’s cuss about the animals kept in prisons that are zoos.
Freedom that raccoons are enjoying in the Central Park, New York, reminds us of the poor Central Park Five—a group of schoolboys including four Black Americans and a Latino—wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman and incarcerated, 30 years ago. Donald Trump called for implementing the death sentence by way of deterrent punishment, but the man who committed the crime confessed, years later, and the youth had to be exonerated. By that time, they had served sentences, ranging from six to 13 years. Last year, when the issue was raised again, President Trump refused to tender an apology!
Besides being slaughtered and incarcerated for commercial purposes, animals are subjected to various other forms of cruelty. In this country, which is said to be home to several great religions, elephants are made to undergo untold suffering in the name of jumbo safaris. Hakkapatas (improvised explosive devices concealed in fruits, etc.) cause elephants to suffer agonising deaths. In some other countries, dogs are eaten or made to take part in races. The same goes for horses, camels, etc. In Scandinavia, dolphins are slaughtered, in their hundreds, by boys upon reaching ‘manhood’. Some nations are notorious for foxhunting, which Oscar Wilde rightly described, though a character in one of his plays, as ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’.
There are many other ways in which humans inflict suffering on poor animals. It looks as if the retribution had finally come in the form of a highly contagious zoonosis, which has snuffed out many lives and caused humans to be incarcerated in their own homes. The dreadful coronavirus has stood everything manmade on its head and instilled into humans the fear of death in a far more effective way than terrorism. Will they stop deriving pleasure from inflicting suffering on animals?
Man has been put in his place, at long last. While humans are having lockdown blues, which are not likely to go away anytime soon, animals which were in hiding for fear of cruel bipeds are now enjoying unbridled freedom, which they richly deserve.
A report we publish, today, says Albania’s pink flamingos and curly pelicans are flourishing in lagoons, thanks to Covid-19, which has forced humans, who pollute water and air, and disturb the world, to remain indoors. Animals have been sighted even in cities in some parts of the world. We have recently seen heartwarming pictures of a gaze of raccoons scurrying about, in the Central Park, New York, a herd of sika deer in Nara, Japan, a sounder of pigs in Haifa, Israel, a paddling of mallards in Paris, a tribe of mountain goats in the Welsh town of Llandudno, a peacock in Dubai and a herd of fallow deer in East London.
Whoever would have thought, a few moons ago, such rare, pleasing sights would ever be possible? The curious critters, straying into the newly opened-up terrain, must be feeling sorry for the bipeds inhabiting the concrete jungles.
Humans get depressed when they have to stay at home, together with their loved ones, for a few weeks. Has anyone ever paused to think how depressed the dumb animals, forcibly removed from their families and natural habitats, and kept in zoos, are? We fought quite a battle, about a decade ago, to prevent a baby elephant from being separated from his mother, in Pinnawala, and donated to a temple. Sadly, our efforts failed.
Some people are so depressed due to being confined to their own homes that they have turned to alienists to get over their blues, we are told. But nobody give a tinker’s cuss about the animals kept in prisons that are zoos.
Freedom that raccoons are enjoying in the Central Park, New York, reminds us of the poor Central Park Five—a group of schoolboys including four Black Americans and a Latino—wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman and incarcerated, 30 years ago. Donald Trump called for implementing the death sentence by way of deterrent punishment, but the man who committed the crime confessed, years later, and the youth had to be exonerated. By that time, they had served sentences, ranging from six to 13 years. Last year, when the issue was raised again, President Trump refused to tender an apology!
Besides being slaughtered and incarcerated for commercial purposes, animals are subjected to various other forms of cruelty. In this country, which is said to be home to several great religions, elephants are made to undergo untold suffering in the name of jumbo safaris. Hakkapatas (improvised explosive devices concealed in fruits, etc.) cause elephants to suffer agonising deaths. In some other countries, dogs are eaten or made to take part in races. The same goes for horses, camels, etc. In Scandinavia, dolphins are slaughtered, in their hundreds, by boys upon reaching ‘manhood’. Some nations are notorious for foxhunting, which Oscar Wilde rightly described, though a character in one of his plays, as ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’.
There are many other ways in which humans inflict suffering on poor animals. It looks as if the retribution had finally come in the form of a highly contagious zoonosis, which has snuffed out many lives and caused humans to be incarcerated in their own homes. The dreadful coronavirus has stood everything manmade on its head and instilled into humans the fear of death in a far more effective way than terrorism. Will they stop deriving pleasure from inflicting suffering on animals?
No comments:
Post a Comment