Let them be

It’s not a watering hole in its true sense. ‘Watering hole’, yours truly is sure, is music to the ears for the party animals out there. You people may be wondering as to which new hip and happening ‘watering hole’ is yours truly talking 'bout?    

Lemme clarify. Yours truly is talking about the watering hole for wild animals and not party animals. 

This shallow pit is not the result of a geographic depression and animals of different species do not come here to quench their thirst, not even in the wildest of imaginations, nor does any life-and-death battle take place between the predator and the prey here. 

Rather, it appears to be a hastily-built shallow pit meant to provide precious droplets of water to the monkeys. It's a case of too little too late arrangements for the inhabitants.

Apparently, for the dominant inhabitants of these part-artificial-part-natural woods where the wild animals seem sober, perhaps in anticipation of human tendency to go wild in the wilderness, there’s no fear of predators like tigers and the cheetah, whether it’s near the ‘watering hole’ or in the vicinity.

Apparently, a couple of dogs are no match for the dominant primates known for their mischief and the ability to imitate homo sapiens. In several sparsely-populated parts of Nepal, these primates are giving the fellow primate, homo sapiens, a tough time by destroying crops, attacking women, children and the elderly. Reports of flocks of homo sapiens picketing police posts to seek protection from the marauding monkeys are nothing new.       

But in these woods, there seems to be no dearth of adversities for these creatures. 

Lack of proper food, water and shelter is one of the most difficult problems. Food is scarce here too, with not enough fruiting trees for a burgeoning population, forcing these creatures to raid houses in the immediate neighbourhood and beyond. River water is contaminated and there are hardly any other sources of water. Needless to say, inbreeding seems to be rife.

Once in a while, these poor creatures get to snatch bottled water from the visitors caught off-guard, but most of the times, it’s hard luck for them. Then there are ticks that won't go off. Whenever free, these social animals are seen scratching each other’s backs and feeding off ticks living in their bodies.             

The enemy is also within. Once in a while, gang fights break out. Grievous injuries and even death are not uncommon.  

While roaming around the Shleshmantak woods as an amateur observer of simian behavior a few days ago, yours truly witnessed a fight between two monkeys. Perhaps they were from rival clans. One chased the other, cornered it by the side of a temple and launched a vicious attack. Long after the fight, the defeated one was still wailing like a child. Sometime, everybody hurts, no? What say you, REM? It's a wild world with justice as elusive as in human societies, though there are larger-than-life alpha males in every group. Like our leaders, all that they do is seek to monopolise all good things that come with the topmost position in the simian hierarchy, it appears.          

But their most lethal foe appears all- powerful and untamable. Before this foe, even the alpha male appears helpless. The foe is none other than homo sapiens, the greatest ecological disaster to fall upon Planet Earth.

This foe encroaches upon wilderness, drives wild animals away and puts them behind bars. It subjects them to extreme cruelty as circus animals and as a source of cosmetic products.

This foe feeds those animals out of 'kindness', causing them diseases, death, environmental degradation. Perhaps this is some sort of atonement for sins committed against all other beings on Planet Earth! But this act of kindness is acting as poison with sugar coatings.

Let yours truly draw from the findings of a study that Asmita Sengupta and her team from the National Institute of Advanced Studies (India) conducted in 2016 to shed light on the negative impact of this 'kindness' on the 'beneficiaries'. The research conducted at the Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal found that provisioning of food (in this case, human act of giving food to rhesus macaques) has an adverse effect on seed dispersal and fruit-eating behaviour of the critters.

During provisioning, the researchers found that the macaques' daily range of dispersal was only half of what it was during the non-provisioning period.

Worryingly, 67% of faecal seeds were deposited on roads in January with no possibility of germination. As per the findings, the macaques had 94% frugivory (fruit-eating) behavior in September, the peak of the non-provisioning period, in sharp contrast to 0% frugivory in April. Findings of the examination of faecal samples of the macaques during the highest provisioning period were shocking: There were no seeds on those samples!

What a blow to gene flow, what a blow to plant diversity.

Here's part of one more report that may prompt us not to compromise on animal health through our generosity.   

Gist of the report on the Sydney Morning Herald (dated September 30, 2018): Melbourne Zoo has had to wean its animals off fruit diet and switch to leafy greens because the fruit diet was making some animals obese and rotting their teeth due to heavy sugar content, which was the result of selective breeding of fruit trees.

So, how about exercising some restraint instead of providing junk food like juice to wild animals, thereby making their lives more miserable? Studies have shown that foodstuffs rich in sugar make animals like monkeys hyperactive and aggressive. Intake of sugar-rich foodstuffs like bananas grown through selective breeding also puts monkeys at increased risk of diabetes.

How about letting fruit trees grow in the wild as part of sustained efforts to wean animals like the monkeys off the junk that we throw their way?

And how about just letting them be instead of killing them through our kindness and unleashing on Planet Earth yet another environmental catastrophe?

Truly, that will be homo sapiens' greatest favour to Planet Earth.

                                                                           Text and pictures: Devendra Gautam