Earlier in January, Kishor Rithe, President of the Satpuda Foundation and member of the National Board for Wildlife, was travelling near Semadoh on the Harisal-Semadoh highway, when he saw a bus driver and passengers of a Shriram Travels bus feeding bananas to monkeys.
Rithe told the Times Of India (TOI) that many vehicles stop in this stretch and throw foodgrains and bananas for the monkeys. This attracts not only the monkeys, but many wild animals to the roadside on this stretch, which has become notorious for wildlife deaths, including sloth bears, sambars, leopards and porcupines, due to vehicular accidents. Besides this, incidents of monkey bites have been reported by visitors in the region.
Photograph by Deepak Chourasia.
The aforementioned bus driver defied not only Rithe, but the forest staff at the Semadoh chowki, and was finally apprehended at the gate by Range Forest Officer M. S. Pachare and his squad and booked for offences under the Wildlife Protection Act. A similar scenario ensued when a State Transport bus from Burhanpur to Amravati stopped at the same spot in the core area and driver Yuvraj Sonune, who had specially bought bananas from Dharni for the monkeys, started feeding them.
This crackdown on the feeding of wildlife in the region has sparked sensation among indignant tourists, who think their actions are either harmless, or in fact beneficial to the primates. There is a need for increased awareness on the threats that this poses to the well-being of not only the animals, but the visitors themselves. Speaking about the issue, K. P. Singh, Chief Conservator of Forests and Field Director of Melghat Tiger Reserve told TOI, “The issue has become very serious. We have put up display boards and signage but people fail to understand the problem."
Source: Sanctuary Asia.
