Lately, a tragic incident involving death of a school kid at Delhi Zoo has been making headlines in media and social media. Kid in question, had fallen into a white tiger’s enclosure and was later attacked and killed by the tiger.
While I am no body to comment on this particular incident, since I was neither there nor do I know all the facts leading up to this incident. However, having visited Delhi Zoo numerous times, I can only say, the fact such incidents don’t occur more often is a miracle.
Because I have seen people shouting and screaming at the poor caged animals and I have also seen them throw stones etc. at the animals and I have also seen plenty of people leaning in to enclosures or touching the cages.
And it is stuff like this, which makes me wonder, whether zoo authorities are really to blame, let alone the poor tiger, who was probably just as dumbfounded at that moment as the victim, who had fallen into his enclosure.
After all, it isn’t like zoo guards don’t intervene. I have personally seen them intervene 3-4 times and I also see them make rounds regularly. But when you are dealing with people who believe it is their god given right to throw stuff at animals or shout/scream at them. How do you expect a lone guard to actually deal sternly with such individuals?
Heck I have seen school kids (same age group as the victim) arguing furiously with a guard and later cursing him, after he stopped them from throwing stuff at a half visible crocodile (they were throwing stuff at the poor creature, so that they could see him fully)!
Now I am not saying this kid was probably doing the same thing, but fact of the matter is, it isn’t possible to slip into white tiger’s enclosure, unless you are sitting on the railing, heavily leaning against it or someone is actually pushing you inside.
Which one of the above fact was it, I don’t know and I doubt we will ever come to know.
Fact is, a family has lost their kid and people need to blame someone for this incident (zoo authorities, government, tiger, kid, god or whatever.)
The way I see it, there isn’t any way to prevent such incidents from happening in future, unless we install electric fences on the visitor side (which would be a good thing). And stop tolerating idiotic behavior in zoo and in the streets.
20 Comments
It was alone a conduct of people there, Animals don’t kill for pleasure. They don’t attack utill they are hungry or in danger, In video it is clear the tiger was not hungry, It was the shouting and throwing stones made him mad, He sensed danger and killed the boy.
Abhinav, well said!
Very true Yogesh bhai. Completely agree with you.
Thank you Asad.
I believe what you mentioned is true, we indians as whole are allergic to the rules around us. We see the signbords and instructions on them as mere cosmetics and give scant value to the instructions and land in soup. Then there is debate what wnet wrong for sake of debate and no action is taken on ground. Waiting for another tragic incident to occur.
Pushpinder, there isn’t much one can do, to prevent people from acting in a foolish manner and putting themselves in harm’s way. I guess the only thing zoo authorities can do is make the animals more people friendly and get them used to their handlers. That way, if something like this happen, hopefully the handler can calm the poor animal down and lure him away. Of course for this to happen, spectators have to remain silent and not throw stuff at the poor animal (which I seriously doubt would happen.)
Yogesh Bhai, I agree with you.
It is our responsibility to take care of our safety, it is ‘Tiger’ in the moat if you go inside then you will be killed.
If you see, in South Africa too whenever you go for jungle safari, you will be warned if you open the car/jeep window glass or get down and any animal attacks you then it will be whole visitors responsibility and forest authorities will not come in picture to save. And here in India we go inside in tiger moat and expect that tiger will spare us.
Feel sad when I see caption like “????????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ?? ??? ???”…
Quite true Supriya. Sad part is, media is busy blaming the zoo authorities, somehow believing that it is fairly easy to tranquilize an animal and prevent it from hurting the person in front of him, once he is hit hard with that tranquilizer dart!
Can’t agree more!
Have seen such behavior of the so-called smartest beings on earth and hence, in my mind, there’s no doubt that the reason for such a sad incident is the utter dis-regard most of Indians have, for almost anything & everything apart from their own selves.
Quite true Rajiv. And this mindset needs to change, otherwise even worse incidents will only become all too common.
I don’t know about the Delhi Zoo, but in any major zoo, unless the person tries to breach a perimeter, it is next to impossible to fall into an animal enclosure. Whatever the sequence of events, one thing is for sure that the person himself endangered his own life.
Our behaviour is the major problem. We don’t know how to follow rules and guidelines. Got a chance to visit the Singapore Zoo last month. Who was the only person who was knocking on the glass of an animal enclosure because the animal inside was not visible? Who were the only couple who were taking flash photos despite the several signboards requesting people not to do so? I am ashamed to say they were Indians in both cases.
Our cops are very good at manhandling and pushing people around while entering stadiums for cricket matches. Why can’t we station one such small police squad in each zoo. The moment someone reports in a person throwing things or teasing animals, they should rush there and throw those people out.
Because Amit, this is India and those cops will likely get busy, fleecing and manhandling couples roaming there.
Plus we can’t really expect cops to be present everywhere, not unless we are ready to pay through nose for a massive police force and a police state. Best bet is to try and educate children and their parents about social responsibility, courtesy and manners and maybe, just maybe, we will have a generation which isn’t as bad as the current one.
I don’t know Yogeshbhai, there was a time I would have agreed with you, that education would help. I used to pick up other people’s trash on treks, I used to talk to the people dumping garbage in the empty plot in our neighborhood telling them that the city corporation came around each morning collecting garbage at our doorstep, so why dump elsewhere.
Sadly, I’ve seen that it’s mainly the ‘educated’ (school+college) people who don’t care. Saw a well-dressed couple eating chaat near a fancy car. Both obviously ‘educated’. There was a dustbin literally 5 steps away from them, big, bright, red, obvious. The girl finishes her chaat, casually chucks the mess right at her feet and they drive away in that expensive car.
I’ve seen some neighbours chuck their garbage in the gutter right in front of their house and then these same people wonder why that gutter overflows in the monsoon! And complain that the government does not do enough to protect their children from dengue.
Education is not the answer, we’ll only respond to ‘dandaa’.
Sadly Amit, this is the ground reality in India. I see more educated people acting like complete morons than the poor and uneducated people, educated class looks down upon.
Fact is this isn’t a new thing. This is what Gandhi Ji’s followers discovered during the Independence Struggle, when plague had broken out and they had started visiting homes to ask individuals to keep their houses clean. They discovered that homes of the poor were usually a lot cleaner than that of educated and rich, who didn’t really pay much attention to maintenance of their havelis and in particular, those old style toilets, which needed to be manually cleaned of human waste.
I still believe to a certain degree, if we actually put emphasis on education and not just treat schools and collages as degree printing machines, our country still has a chance to reform.
I’m in a dilemma when it comes to blaming the cause of this. Although I’m pretty certain that the victim is at fault here. Considering the facts on how unruly we Indians behave, there should have been strict people to implement the rules. Not just one underpaid guy to control few hundred people.
If I was a lone guard for one moat there, I would probably back off if few idiotic guys were to come up against me.
Quite true Sreejith, a lone guard isn’t going to be enough to control bunch of idiots and idiots usually roam around in groups. I guess CCTVs and electrical fencing (on the visitor side) might act as a deterrent, but then again, any fencing is going to be bad photography enthusiasts and for people actually interested in watching the animals.
I agree completely.. I firstly believe there should not be Zoo where captured animals are on display to be tortured.. If “humans” wants to preserve other species or research or keep injured one, they need to be done within national forest area.. designate some area in or right outside of national forest which will be even closure of natural habitat.
And there is a need to increase the entry fee at Zoo (and national monuments) to at least 10 folds.. that will bring only serious visitors..
Pawan while what you have said is true. However, looking at how well India has done as far as conservation is concerned, Tigers might just survive only in zoos in the coming years (provided more such incidents do not occur). So we need to keep these zoos open, though we need to make sure that animals have enough space to roam around a bit more freely and get a little bit of exercise.
Increasing cost of tickets is a bad idea, since money isn’t criteria to judge a person’s seriousness towards something. It is just a criteria to judge, who has how much money in the pocket. A poor kid might be more interested in learning and watching wild animals than a rich brat, hell bent on creating ruckus during their weekend picnic to a high priced zoo.
As Amit has mentioned above, education and money is not something that translates into better civic sense or even common sense in India. And keeping poor people from visiting something that is a part of our heritage, culture and environment is something I am completely against.
Yes we do need to spend more on upkeep of our national parks, monuments, zoos etc. however those funds have to come from other routes, rather than just increased cost of ticket.
later its found that the tiger was actually protecting the kid from stones! something similar they do with their cubs. the tiger caught hold of kid by his neck and carried to distant place to protect him from the stones. this was reported in a news paper
sshiremath2000 at best that is a speculation, since tigers and lions also kill their pray by biting in to their neck and then chocking them.