Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle! If I remember correctly, the last time pineapples were this much in the news, was when the world was going crazy over Pineapples being on Pizza! And maybe the Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen. But unlike those, this is a tragedy.
Since the post of Forest Officer, Mohanan Krishnan went viral, the story has exploded with almost all media houses (save a few) reporting it as an action of miscreants and 'saddest picture on the internet today' cartoons being reshared widely!
Since the post of Forest Officer, Mohanan Krishnan went viral, the story has exploded with almost all media houses (save a few) reporting it as an action of miscreants and 'saddest picture on the internet today' cartoons being reshared widely!
Before long, we had change.org petitions calling for the 'shoot-to-kill' of the miscreants and political parties giving it a religious angle branding 'Gods own Country' as a terror state for animals. The liberal food habits of the state give the much needed fire to these arguments for sure! The unfortunate death of a wild animal exploded out into the country rife with problems and joined the bandwagon of suiting the narrator's argument...
Let us step back and reassess the situation once, shall we? A pineapple stuffed with country-made-dynamite was allegedly 'fed' to an elephant? Why? If it is to derive some cruel pleasure from it, akin to tying a chain of crackers to a dog's tail, you wouldn't see the explosion or the dog prancing about! What's the endgame? Besides, it was days untill the elephant was found and another couple of days before it died! Why then would some bastards play a cruel prank on the poor pregnant elephant?
Furthermore, it was not untill after the postmortem that the pregnancy was discovered. And the incident took place in an area surrounded by forests and the ghats that houses a good human population. Without empathizing or contemplating the situation, we jumped to conclusions and started calling the perpetrators wicked villains and punishment of worst kind to be meted out to them!
Empathy, is very important. And not just for the victim. Our justice system doesn't work like that. And if it did, it wouldn't be justice. The village in question, is plagued by wild boar attacks. Farmers who depend on the produce are forced to defend their estates and farms from being constantly raided and destroyed. And it is not just this village, the entirety of the ghat belt has this problem and it has been the status quo for quite some time. This may come as a shock to many born and brought up in the comforts of cities, but people still do hunt in the ghats. People do put snares and traps for wild animals. Sometimes dangerous ones, like tigers and panthers. Life for farmers at the edge of the forest isn't as simple or civilized as ours.
Animals are smarter than we give them credit for. They over time develop herd immunity for some of the drugs used. They start to avoid traps and snares and find new ways of survival. And that forces people to innovate. The Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in question, the pineapple stuffed with country dynamite is one such innovation targeted at wild boars. By a desperate farmer to protect his produce and hence his livelihood!
This in no way means what happened isn't sad or unfortunate. But it is important to understand what happened wasn't some sadist idea of fun or meted out as a cruel prank. Wouldn't we have cried to the skies if the farmer sick of his crops being destroyed committed suicide? But that is another story for another day, right now, we must call for his capture and capital punishment because a pregnant elephant was brutally killed! What sort of hypocrisy is that? But who will cry and hold people responsible for the many many wild boars that were killed in a similar way, with dynamite exploding in their mouths? Is it the media's fault for not reporting? Or is it just ours for not caring enough?
The real story is more than the IED exploding in the pachyderm's mouth. The elephant found the pineapple, tried to eat it, the pineapple exploded in its mouth grievously injuring it. Unable to eat anything with the injuries and in an attempt to avoid flies attacking the rotting flesh, it wandered around for weeks before finally choosing to settle in a lake, to soothe its wounds and die in the least painful way possible.
These answers come from Dr Ab Qayoom, a Forest Officer who has a front row seat to many such incidents. Common folk who live on the forests' edge are no doubt more privvy to its delicate balance and harmonized co-existence with the wildlife!
The questions of biosphere reserves, walled boundaries and protection for farms can be debated to no end. Even if the locals follow the rules by the book and the forest officials are ever vigilant, there are miscreants who try to poach animals and drive them away from their habitats, feeding grounds and watering holes and into human occupied lands. We know our boundaries, wild animals don't really live by our rules.
Nobody takes change.org petitions seriously, but think for a moment that they did. Would we want to find this alleged perp probably to ensure his crops were safe and 'shoot-to-kill' him? Probably not!
Sources
Let us step back and reassess the situation once, shall we? A pineapple stuffed with country-made-dynamite was allegedly 'fed' to an elephant? Why? If it is to derive some cruel pleasure from it, akin to tying a chain of crackers to a dog's tail, you wouldn't see the explosion or the dog prancing about! What's the endgame? Besides, it was days untill the elephant was found and another couple of days before it died! Why then would some bastards play a cruel prank on the poor pregnant elephant?
Furthermore, it was not untill after the postmortem that the pregnancy was discovered. And the incident took place in an area surrounded by forests and the ghats that houses a good human population. Without empathizing or contemplating the situation, we jumped to conclusions and started calling the perpetrators wicked villains and punishment of worst kind to be meted out to them!
Empathy, is very important. And not just for the victim. Our justice system doesn't work like that. And if it did, it wouldn't be justice. The village in question, is plagued by wild boar attacks. Farmers who depend on the produce are forced to defend their estates and farms from being constantly raided and destroyed. And it is not just this village, the entirety of the ghat belt has this problem and it has been the status quo for quite some time. This may come as a shock to many born and brought up in the comforts of cities, but people still do hunt in the ghats. People do put snares and traps for wild animals. Sometimes dangerous ones, like tigers and panthers. Life for farmers at the edge of the forest isn't as simple or civilized as ours.
Animals are smarter than we give them credit for. They over time develop herd immunity for some of the drugs used. They start to avoid traps and snares and find new ways of survival. And that forces people to innovate. The Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in question, the pineapple stuffed with country dynamite is one such innovation targeted at wild boars. By a desperate farmer to protect his produce and hence his livelihood!
This in no way means what happened isn't sad or unfortunate. But it is important to understand what happened wasn't some sadist idea of fun or meted out as a cruel prank. Wouldn't we have cried to the skies if the farmer sick of his crops being destroyed committed suicide? But that is another story for another day, right now, we must call for his capture and capital punishment because a pregnant elephant was brutally killed! What sort of hypocrisy is that? But who will cry and hold people responsible for the many many wild boars that were killed in a similar way, with dynamite exploding in their mouths? Is it the media's fault for not reporting? Or is it just ours for not caring enough?
The real story is more than the IED exploding in the pachyderm's mouth. The elephant found the pineapple, tried to eat it, the pineapple exploded in its mouth grievously injuring it. Unable to eat anything with the injuries and in an attempt to avoid flies attacking the rotting flesh, it wandered around for weeks before finally choosing to settle in a lake, to soothe its wounds and die in the least painful way possible.
These answers come from Dr Ab Qayoom, a Forest Officer who has a front row seat to many such incidents. Common folk who live on the forests' edge are no doubt more privvy to its delicate balance and harmonized co-existence with the wildlife!
The questions of biosphere reserves, walled boundaries and protection for farms can be debated to no end. Even if the locals follow the rules by the book and the forest officials are ever vigilant, there are miscreants who try to poach animals and drive them away from their habitats, feeding grounds and watering holes and into human occupied lands. We know our boundaries, wild animals don't really live by our rules.
Nobody takes change.org petitions seriously, but think for a moment that they did. Would we want to find this alleged perp probably to ensure his crops were safe and 'shoot-to-kill' him? Probably not!
Sources
- https://www.ibtimes.co.in/fact-check-kerala-pregnant-elephant-was-not-fed-pineapple-stuffed-firecrackers-821484
- https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/pregnant-elephant-kerala-dies-after-biting-cracker-stuffed-pineapple-125785
- Conversations with friends who live close in the ghats in close proximity to forests and cityfolk like me who originally didn't empathize as much.