With humans locked indoor, wildlife regains turf

Lucknow, March 28

Humans are under lockdown following the Covid-19 scare, but animals are enjoying a free run on empty roads. Videos and photographs of wild animals walking on empty roads have been making waves on the social media.

Two days ago, a small Indian civet, a nocturnal animal, was seen in a video clip walking freely during daytime in Meppayur town in Kozhikode in Kerala. One such video is that of a ‘nilgai’ (blue bull or Asian antelope) walking freely outside a mall in Noida’s Sector 18. Though ‘nilgais’ inhabit the area and a number of accidents on highways have been reported on roads in this part of the state, it is not very usual to see a ‘nilgai’ walking in the city areas.

Forest Officer Parveen Kaswan also shared the same video captioned “with humans under lockdown, the roads have become easily accessible to wildlife. This is a rare sight.”

Susanta De, an IFS officer from Odisha, posted a video of a group of sambar walking on the road near Haridwar. Forest officials of that area said that this species is known ‘barasingha’ and comes from the Jhilmil Jheel Conservation Reserve, a marshy grass land near Haridwar. Monkeys in Agra and Mathura are also enjoying a free run. As they scamper across temples in search of food, some of them are reportedly becoming increasingly aggressive. “Monkeys have started attacking people due to shortage of food. In normal times, tourists and devotees feed them with sweets, biscuits and bananas. Now, they are also attacking shops selling fruits and vegetables,” said a local official, adding that they had no directives to feed monkeys.

Stray dogs also, in the absence of food, are getting increasingly aggressive and feral. In Lucknow’s National Botanical Gardens, school of gold fish can now be seen swimming at the surface, creating myriad patterns. On normal days, when hundreds of morning walkers chatter their way through the gardens, the fish slip deeper and avoid human contact.

In Lakhimpur and adjoining districts, wild animals, including tigers, are being seen on roads. “It is almost as if the wildlife is trying to reclaim its lost space as human presence has decreased near the forest areas,” said a UP forest official. — IANS