To Name or to not Name a Wild Animal
A stranger remains a stranger till you know his or her name.
~unknown.
Tillikum was an orca,that was featured in a documentary called ‘Black Fish’ that brought to the notice of the world, the abject state of misery a whale undergoes in seclusion/confinement. Like most Orcas or killer whales, his dorsal fin collapsed (a general stress marker) and he died of bacterial pneumonia, a common cause of death in captive and wild whales and dolphins.
Cecil, a famous lion was a hunted down (shot for trophy) by an American dentist Walter Palmer who first wounded the lion with a bow and arrow, and then killed the lion with another arrow half a day later, allowing the lion to go through a great ordeal. Cecil's death however didn't go in vain and is generally seen as a game-changer for trophy hunting around the world. It is believed that after the death of Cecil and the international uproar, there has been a significant drop in lion hunting in and around Zimbabwe. This is termed 'Cecil Effect'.
Sudan was the poster boy of Northern White Rhino subspecies that went extinct after springing to 32 from just 13 individuals to poaching and armed conflicts in Congo. But concerted efforts saved the White Rhino species from extinction with the counterpart, the southern white rhinos recovering to around 20,000 from an isolated population of just 50 in South Africa.
These animals aren’t just any other names. They have brought to light the misery of their tribe, the human avarice that has been decimating their numbers, and the insolent maleficence of man to this planet and its inhabitants.
I read somewhere that names are like passkeys which transform a stranger into someone deserving of our attention and this empathizing effect of knowing someone's name still applies when its bearer isn't human.
Humans have not only reduced the numbers of keystone species but also vastly reduced their habitats. Many keystone and umbrella species are on the verge of extinction. And the world is dying today because of the ignorance and silence of the educated and those people in position who can make a change. The world is also dying because we have chosen to remain nonchalant to the destruction of natural forests in the name of unsustainable development.
How do we reach out to a common man to conserve a species, who probably hasn’t seen a tiger or an elephant in his entire life, and who is not connected to the cause? In fact, how can a common man (a rural or an urban person) do something for conservation?
A tiger might have become synonymous with conservation, but how does that translate in real life for a common man? For example, by simply reducing the usage of electricity, which translates to lesser coal production/mining (with the best coal reserves lying deep under the tiger forests), we will save a forest and hence the tiger and the remaining species.
So, how do we inculcate a connection with a common man? We need to give an identity to a forest – personify it. We need to give an identity to the inmates – a charismatic animal such as a tiger (or a rhino or an elephant).
When a name is attached to a face, it is easier to conserve the species. For ex, the Kakapo (also called an Owl Parrot) is a bird endemic to New Zealand that is critically Endangered with just a population of 213. At one point of time, there were only 14 birds. The interesting fact is that all the 213 birds are NAMED and their lineage, and history is well documented and maintained.
Quite a few people argue that naming a wild animal makes it famous and might favour it to be a “game animal”. That might (read, might) be applicable to conservancies that allow hunting but not in a country like India where hunting is banned by law. The issue at hand would rather be that the animal would be of interest to poachers. Poaching happens unabated despite stricter rules and regulations because of the demand in Asian markets for the pelts and other body parts, including the bones for TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Poachers generally don’t come after known tigers because they only risk exposing themselves and that tigers can be easily identified by the stripe patterns that a poaching nexus can be nabbed no sooner than they poach or try to sell the pelts of a known tiger.
By a rule of Supreme Court, tourism is allowed only in a small portion of the PROTECTED reserves. Any case of poaching or electrocution or poisoning inside a protected area is not because of naming the animal but because of a lax in vigilance and patrolling.
The death of a known Tiger draws much more attention and the need for a stronger rules and regulations than an unknown tiger. Since the past 5 years, 2 tigers have been dying ever week, which amounts to more than 500 tigers and most of the deaths are due to anthropogenic factors. 70 percent of these tigers are from non-tourism areas. 500 is not a small number by any means (given the vast protection and the exceptional human activity – tourism, forest department, NGOs and related individuals and organizations centered around a tiger).
I buy the point that a lot of us are emotionally attached to a named tiger and don’t worry about any other tiger. But that’s only the myopic vision of things. A known or a named tiger is and should be seen as a mascot or a representative of its entire tribe. The empathy that a known tiger draws in tourist crowd or evokes interest among the non-goers to a forest should be extended to all the individuals of its tribe. Any tiger killed by any anthropocentric activity should be unsung and bemoaned. And that is how we must condition ourselves than thinking that “Naming the wild animals trivialises or focuses or hero-worships one particular individual”.
It has been scientifically proven that in research labs where experiments are conducted on captive animals, the ones that are named are subject to humane and less cruel ways of treatment.
Naming doesn’t mean anything for the animal nor will it take any of their wilderness or its nature. It only means that we humans change the way we regard them - our accountability and responsibility towards them.
This is the photo of two tigers fighting over a territory. You get further involved when I say that these two are sisters and this is the last time, they enjoyed a meal together. And more drawn when I say that they are the daughters of a female from Ranthambore who had successfully duped a dominant male tiger into raising her cubs (of previous litter from another dominant tiger) as his’ own. And when I say, the female tiger is Noor, the duped dominant male is Aurangzeb and the other dominant tiger is Ustad, and the cubs raised are Kalua and Dholya, you understand the story much better.