A lot has already been discussed here before and I really don't want to repeat the same again.
I have hunted in Africa, Argentina,England and recently in India where I was part of a team which shot a maneating leopard.
There is no doubt that hunting contributes to conservation.
Humans tend to equate everything for it's gross material value. A forest is worthwhile only if it is of any material value to us. Hunting generates the funds which are needed for the upkeep of the forest. India banned tiger hunting in the early 1970's and all forms of hunting in the 1980's.
Why has our wildlife not bounced back?
The reasons are many and I shall name a few.
People living on the outskirts of our jungles use the forests to collect firewood. Also as a feeding ground for their cattle. I have hundreds of snaps where you will see people stealing wood from the jungle and cattle grazing with wildboar/deer. Last sunday on my way back from Gwalior I stopped at Jhilmil jheel. A place famous for it's swamp deer (Barasingha). I spotted two herds of Barasingha. One was a bachelor herd with about 20 odd males. The other was a female herd with two beautiful males. This one consisted of more than 30 individuals. I was on a hill top and had a panoramic view of the jheel. I have taken snaps where the Barasingha are grouped together within the swamp while the cattle are grazing on the lush green maidaans belonging to the reserve.
You can pm me your e mail and I will send a couple of snaps .
It is heart breaking.
For a person living outside the forest. The only material value the forest has is free firewood and a free grazing ground for his cattle.
For a builder the forest is worthless. A builder in Borivali has more interest in making an appartment complex than saving forests. Yesterday I was reading an article about a leopard being chased out of a residential area by some stray dogs.
Every year forests are encroached upon to give way to "development". There was a lovely quote I saw on 'mundairs' facebook account the other day.
"Why is it that when we distroy any thing man made it is called vandalism. But when we distroy some thing created by nature it is called progress."
A miner is more interested in collecting sand and rocks from a dry river bed and distroying the spawning sites of the Mahaseer because the fish means nothing to him.
Few dams in the country have fish ladders. Who is bothered about fish when the dam is going to genertate X amount of electricity and irrigate Y sq kms of aggricultural land?
The only person who thinks about the fish is the angler and unfortunately they are outnumbered.
Roads and Rail tracks cut through our best forests. Every year we hear of elephants being cut down and killed by trains in Assam and Uttarakhand.
The Earth provides us enough for our Needs
But not enough for our Greed.
To add to all this is the poacher who kills and traps anything, everything , anytime. For the poacher there is no season.
A hunter on the other hand would hunt only in season. In olden days when hunting blocks were given out. The presence of a hunter was enough to keep the poachers away.
The forest is worthwhile only to a wildlife/nature enthusiast or a hunter.
and when you talk economics. One trophy hunter has a lesser (adverse) impact on the habitat (Carbon footprint) and pays much more than a hundred wildlife photographers would in a given time frame.
In Argentina , the only forests I saw were in the Game Reserve I was hunting. The rest of the Pampas has been cleared for farms.
The same goes for South Africa. Miles and Miles of farmland and Gold mines.
England today has more deer than they have ever had for centuries. The British Shooting and Conservation Assosiation says that more than a 1,00,000 deer have to be culled. To reduce our corbon footprints every farmer has to plant a certain number of trees. With no major predators (except man) on the island nation , the increase deer population has an adverse impact on aforestation programmes.
I shot 3.
A red Stag and 2 Roe deer.
Some years ago I met an old hunter in Corbett.
He used to come there every year in the winters till he died. He had travelled the world and had made enough money. What made him come back to a Forest Rest House with no electricity when he could as well spend the money in a 5 star resort.
His reply:
" Kya Karega Rakh ke Hera Sona Moti.
Kehte hain Kafan me jaib (pocket) nahi hoti."
He came here to listen to the music of the jungle. The bird songs and the alarm calls of the deer. Nothing gave him more pleasure than being close to nature.
BTW I am going for a photo safari to Dhikala. Corbett Tiger Reserve this week end.
