Webinar with Wildlife SOS on 'Rights of Animals' - 27 December 2020

Rights of Animals 
with Wasim Akram

Webinar: Rights of Animals

Organization: Wildlife SOS 

Speaker: Wasim Akram

Date: 27 December 2020

The Political Science Association of Wilson College, Mumbai in association with Wildlife SOS conducted an interactive and informative webinar on the topic "Rights of Animals" on 27th December 2020 from 5-6 pm. The session was conducted by Mr. Wasim Akram - Deputy Director of Special Projects at Wildlife SOS.

Wildlife SOS works in rescuing animals, treating them with medical aid, rehabilitating them and releasing them into wild or natural habitats once they are fit for it. They mainly rescue bears, elephants, leopards along with other animals too. ( forest authority and forest department are informed about their operations well in advance and kept in the loop).

Mr. Wasim Akram shared an example that shows how with some efforts transformation is possible. There is a community called Kalandar which used bears for earning income as a source of livelihood. To stop this exploitation of bears, women of this community were empowered - they were given vocational training in stitching and other work so that future generations don't get into the same profession for livelihood and 6000+  students secured free education. 40% of Wildlife SOS's employees are from indigenous communities.

Wildlife SOS has a village-level rescue team, example in Junnar, Maharashtra, they rescued a cub and reunited with its mother. 

In Agra, Delhi NCR, Vadodara City they have round the clock dedicated rescue team which is ready to undertake operation when required. While rescuing animals they do face challenges, sometimes from fringe elements as well but the zeal and enthusiasm of the team along with the forest department manage to overcome the challenges and carry on the rescue operation.

The speaker of the webinar made us aware of the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act where 6 schedules are incorporated. Schedule 1 is a non-bailable offence and maximum protection and in subsequent schedule, punishment decreases. Schedule 5 is related to vermins where sometimes human rights vs animal rights issues come in because of a lack of understanding of the schedule. Did you know that the killing of a snake invites punishment that may vary from 3 years of jail to a fine?  This act also aims at stopping wildlife trafficking. 

Heart-wrenching methods that are used by poachers were brought to our notice, for example, sometimes live scaly animals are put in heated oil to remove scale and produce some kind of oil from it which is then sold in the market or how poachers especially for tiger hunting uses jaw trap, making it a painful experience for tiger, wires are used by poachers as bait for different kinds of animals or to break the spirit of elephants while taming them spiked chains are put on all four legs and no food is given from few days to few weeks, till it surrenders to master - all these were shocking and saddening incidents that bring humanity a shame. But as they say, there is always a silver lining to a dark cloud, so all these incidents made Wildlife SOS establish India's first elephant hospital in Mathura and India's only elephant ambulance.

In 2010, an elephant conservation and care centre in Mathura was opened with the aim - a better life for all elephants. They have also launched a campaign - end the abuse refuse to ride elephants ( where they want the tourism sector to ban elephant ride in tourist places eg: Amber Fort, Jaipur where elephant ride is a major tourist attraction), animal lovers and conscious human beings can support this campaign by signing the petition. Rescuing and saving animals is not at all an easy task but if we believe animals do have rights like us and their life is no way less precious than our own and we have the compassion and zeal to save them then definitely we can do it, Wildlife SOS is a great example of this.

As someone said "There may be days when I can't help animals in need, but the day will never come that I won't try" - should be our spirit in saving animals and making this earth beautiful. 

In the end, we had an interesting question-answer session where the queries of students were addressed in the best possible way by the speaker, and the best surprise was when the audience came to know that young people can join their volunteering programmes and there is no qualification to be a volunteer, one just needs to have the desire to work for the cause, that's all. 

Sincere thanks to the speaker, Mr. Wasim Akram and the team of Wildlife  SOS for making us more aware citizens and for such an educated and informative session that will definitely motivate us to speak for the ones without the voice.

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Report drafted by Priyanjana Deora, TYBA - Political Science.