Today is World Animal Day. The Day is celebrated on October 4 every year. The main goal of this day is to spread the message for the welfare of the animal world in every corner of the globe and to unite the animal welfare movement.
Hendrik Zimmermann, a German writer, first celebrated this day on March 24, 1925 at the Berlin Palace in Germany. The event was held with more than four and a half thousand people. October 4, 1931, was recognized as World Animal Day by a resolution he presented at the International Congress for the Protection of Animals in Florence, Italy.
From unicellular to non-single species, multicellular animals exist on earth. Animals help sustain the earth. From dog to Elephants each animal plays an important role in protecting the living world through its activities. They are also protecting the food chain. Animals usually rely on other organisms to sustain life. Fauna is a part of biodiversity. Sometimes they are extinct due to their own actions and sometimes they are extinct due to natural or man-made causes.
Animal day is celebrated in different ways in Bangladesh irrespective of race, religion, faith and political ideology. One of the endangered species in Bangladesh is the world-famous Royal Bengal Tiger and Elephant.
The Royal Bengal Tiger had a large family in the only mangrove forest or Sundarbans in Bangladesh. According to the tiger census conducted by the forest department, there were 440 tigers in the Sundarbans in 2004. The next 2015 census found only 105 tigers. As a result of deforestation and environmental disasters, tigers are becoming extinct and the tigers in the zoo are not in a very good condition. Meat is the main food of tigers. The number of wild animals suitable for hunting by tigers is currently declining significantly, as a result of which they are entering the locality due to lack of food in the forest. People are killing the tigers and selling their body parts. Not only that, people are hunting tigers in the forest.
According to a statistics from the Department of Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation, between 2001 to 2018, 8 tigers were killed by poachers, 43 tigers were beaten to death locally, 2 fell ill and 8 died naturally. If the number of tigers decreases in this way, tigers will no longer be found in the Sundarbans in the near future.
According to the IUCN Elephant Survey 2016, there were 210 to 330 elephants in Bangladesh. Besides, the number of migratory elephants crossing the borders of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh is 79 to 107. The number of pet elephants is 96. Trading ivory in the international market is a lucrative business. Currently, as a result of population growth, deforestation is destroying elephant habitat.
As a result of Rohingya infiltration in other areas of Chattogram Division including Cox’s Bazar, the elephants are in danger in that area. According to the Forest Department, the Rohingya camp has closed 12 wild elephant trails and destroyed 22 reservoirs, which have resulted in 67 elephants being trapped and facing severe food and water shortages.
After the independence of Bangladesh, the “Bangladesh Wildlife Conservation and Protection Act” was enacted in 1973 on the orders of the then President and Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In 1974, for the second time, the Bangladesh Wildlife Conservation and Protection Act were fully amended and approved. The act was made up of 48 rules and 49 clauses. In 2012, Article 18-A of the Constitution of the country was re-introduced by the state to protect the conservation of biodiversity and wild animals.
In 2017, Under The Bangladesh Gazette 02, Article 41, the punishment for taking action that would adversely affect endangered animals or animals, states: If a person takes such an action, (a) it may adversely affect endangered species; (b) the ecological community may adversely affect or may affect the characteristics of the vulnerable or endangered; Or (c) the Ramsar convention may adversely affect or affect the environment and environmental features of the wetlands. Then the act of doing so under this law is a crime and he shall be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 (five) years or with a penalty not exceeding 10 (ten) lakh rupees or with both. Article 7 of the Animal Welfare Act of 2019 states that no animal without an owner can be killed or removed.
In the past, municipalities and city corporations used to kill dogs by beating them in primitive brutality. In 2012, the high court ruled that the indiscriminate killing of dogs was inhumane. As an alternative, the government announced to control the number of dogs by neutering them. Very recently, Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) declared to start a programme of relocating the 30,000 stray dogs of the city to other districts. Environmentalists and dog lovers have expressed grave concern over this.
There is a saying in Bangladesh that if the forest survives, the animals will survive, the people and nature will survive. So, call upon everyone to come forward to curb the crime related to valuable wildlife and to protect the biodiversity. Wildlife traffickers must be identified and punished. This will discourage others from doing this. Proper enforcement and awareness of the law is needed to protect wildlife.
(Dr. Kamruzzaman Majumder is Dean, Faculty of Science, Chairman, Department of Environmental Science, Stamford University Bangladesh. E-mail: [email protected])
