We celebrate various World Days throughout the year across the globe; yet celebration of the World Animal Day on October 4 may sound unfamiliar to us.
In fact, the history of the World Animal Day, an annual event, dates back to 1925 when Heinrich Zimmermann- a German writer and publisher – originated the day on March 24 of same year at the Sports Palace in Berlin. The proposal of Zimmermann to make October 4 the World Animal Day universal was unanimously accepted and a resolution adopted in May, 1931 at a meeting of the International Animal Protection Congress in Florence, Italy. Since then, it became a worldwide celebration commemorating the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology.
The mother earth is the most beautiful planet in the universe and is home to all kinds of living things, plants, animals including humans or aquatic life etc. Good earth through her enormous benediction sustains our lives and all living creatures have a symbiotic relationship but amongst them humans, unfortunately are most destructive but at the same time are most intelligent and innovative.
Ellen Degenereshad said, “If we’re destroying our trees, destroying our environment and hurting one another and all that stuff, there’s got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy and more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.” In the same vein, let all of us pledge on this day to contribute our might to make our environment more pleasurable and humane by remembering the important role played by wildlife or domesticated animals and trees in our life around the world and those people who dedicate their lives solely in protecting and caring those animals. Therefore, the mission of the World Animal Day should chiefly be to raise status of animals besides improving their welfare standards globally by massive awareness programmes.
The celebration of the day shall make the world a better place for all animals to live in by uniting and mobilizing the animal welfare movement into a global force irrespective of nationality, religion, faith or political ideology. In India there are many animal welfare organisations, including Government agencies working independently or in tandem to protect the rights and welfare of animals.
An important thing to remember is that from time immemorial we have revered the animals and plants aligning them to certain gods or goddesses- elephant and owl with Goddess lakshmi, mouse with lord Ganesh, lion with Goddess Durga, cow with lord Srikrishna, bull and snake with lord Shiva, peacock with Kartikeya, swan with Goddess Saraswati, buffalo with Dharmaraj, monkey with lord Hanuman etc., and host of others depicted in “Dasha Avatar’. let us make a humble beginning by rekindling our heritage to love animals/plants at the primary school level and igniting the young minds about our golden treasure of animals and their conservation, many of whom have either become extinct or on the verge of extinction.
(Dr Mohanty is a member, Odisha livestock Development Society and Indian Red Cross Society M-9437113581 and Dashsharma is a member, Indian Redm Cross Society, M- 9938537600)