Ghane jangal isi ki zad me akar shahar bante hain, Yeh insan tau parindo se bhi abo-dana cheen leta hai,
(Deep forests become cities after coming in their range, these humans even snatch away the bread and butter of birds.) The lines penned by internationally acclaimed Urdu poet of the city Manzar Bhopali are fast becoming a reality as far as wildlife is concerned.
The wildlife activists in the State are worried over the media reports stating tiger attacks on humans published last days, as they are of the view that it is not the tiger or any other animal that is attacking on humans, it is the human that is occupying their territory leaving no option but to defend forcible occupation of their territory by human.
Renowned wildlife conservationist Suhas Kumar while talking to The Pioneer said, “It is the human that is doing encroachment on tiger land and due to this the precious cat species is on the verge of extinction. Tiger never attacks man unless until it is waged or its life is in danger by human.”
Kumar further said that tiger and other wild animals have instinctive fear with the human and they avoid confronting the man, as per the belief except for bear and elephant every other wild animal fears the man. The reason elaborated by the wildlife conservationist in support of this theory is that it is only the bear and elephant that stand above eye level of the human while all other animals are below eye level of the man. Due to their eye level above human bear and elephant do not fear the human while all others fear as their eye level is lower than the man and it is due to eye level that the animals consider their opponent bigger or smaller, he added.
Besides holding encroachment of the tiger territory responsible cat species nearing to extinction Kumar hold baseless media reporting also as one of the major reason for it.
He said that tiger never attacks man and it is very rare that the striped feline goes man-eater, it may attack human and may kill human in certain circumstances but it do not eats human. It is very rare when the tiger turns man-eater but media labels every tiger attack on human as man-eater tiger attack, that is wrong and is not good for the endangered species, he added.
Another wildlife activist from the city Ajay Dubey is also of the same view while he also holds government apathy towards the striped feline for it becoming endangered.
Dubey said that tiger corridors should be developed as per the guidelines of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the tourism and other commercial activities carried out in tiger zone should be stopped so that the endangered species could be saved.