Attention: Our deer in crisis

[Gayathri Nayar]

Dear residents and friends,

    The night before last, I was witness to a fawn being attacked by deer inside the compound of a house on Delhi Avenue. The fawn was badly wounded and did not survive the night. I wrote about it with indignation and apprehensions about the survival of the deer species on our campus, and also challenged the steps we have taken so far to address the problem of their sharply dwindling populations on the campus. The message was lengthy, and perhaps understandably, seemed to have been overlooked. I received the feedback that I could send an edited version of the email to this list, as it was a message that deserved more attention.

    In my humble capacity as a campus resident, I would like to make a reasonable effort to invite conversations about this important issue, and I am resending my earlier note, but edited and better formatted for readability.

The Faculty Association meeting in June- A promising step that remains a promise:

    We, older campus residents, do not need a census to tell us that the deer population here has declined significantly over the last five or six years.

    With great effort, a general meeting was organised by the faculty association about five months ago to brainstorm a resolution of the dog/ deer/ human conflict on campus, followed, a few days later, by a smaller official meeting in which several adequate resolutions were adopted to end the problem. These resolutions were shared with all of us through forums like this one.

    A highlight of the official decision taken in June seemed to be that in future, in the event of reports of attacks by dogs on deer or on human beings here, action would be taken to verify the reports, and identify and relocate the dogs involved.

    Since these promising meetings and the promise of definite action, at least eight deer, buck and fawns have been reported killed in mostly confirmed, and sometimes suspected, predation incidents by dogs, but there is no knowledge of an attempt made to apply the guidelines created at the second, official meeting to identify the dogs involved, and no apparent action taken in any form to preempt further deaths. I am sorry to observe that this will surely erode our collective faith in such processes.

The impact of animal rights activism on this wildlife ecosystem:

    Over the last few years, there has been a growing interest in protecting the rights of the dogs on the campus, by activists both within and outside the campus. Many of those activists were present and expressed passionate opinions at the meeting of the faculty association.

    One salient feature of their arguments was that there is no evidence yet that dogs kill deer here and that if the dogs are fed well, they will not hunt. Our family has personally witnessed about seven or eight fatal attacks on fawns on our campus over the last five years, which include several attacks by two street dogs in our own care, and well fed and looked after by us (before we wisened to the situation and had them adopted). We know several residents who have witnessed such attacks firsthand. These testimonials should be sufficient proof that this crucial argument of the animal rights activists is baseless and, in our present crisis, subversive, because it creates a needless confusion about the best path to remedy the problem.

The obvious path to a Solution:

    There is a famous saying attributed to Einstein that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. 

    I believe there is irrefutable evidence now (and also an informal majority consensus) that the following factors are most responsible for the marked decline of our deer numbers in recent years:

1) The policy of preventing selective eviction of hunting dogs on campus, and 

2) The widespread practice of leaving food leftovers outside, which increases the number of predatory scavengers that our ecosystem can support.

    I learn through the newspapers that the evidence submitted by the Forest Department to the NGT recently identified canine predation as the single most contributing factor to the crisis of declining deer populations on campus:

https://www.google.co.in/amp/www.deccanchronicle.com/amp/nation/in-other-news/031117/forest-department-291-blackbucks-deer-in-iit-madras-fell-prey-to-dogs.html

The same was the conclusion of the aggregated deer death statistics from campus over several years, presented at the faculty association meeting in June.

    Therefore, we can no longer claim to be reasonably divided in our opinion about the right steps to be taken, and the need for urgency in implementing them.

Our Pride at stake...

    Being a long-time resident, I can confidently assert that no referendum is necessary to know that the vast majority of our residents care very much about the rich ecological heritage of this campus. Indeed, it is a matter of immense pride and a credit to our collective wisdom this far that we have managed to protect that unique heritage until now, a last bastion of comforting wilderness in an increasingly and insufferably congested city. We must now sit up and acknowledge that we are nearly at the brink of losing this natural wealth. Some of us will be more responsible for this outcome than others, but we will all equally be the losers.

A proposal for the Next Step:

    I propose that a committee, comprising concerned members of the administration and the most actively interested stakeholders, will be appointed soon to implement the guidelines of the previous meetings. In my view, this committee should be accountable to report their steps taken and the effects of their measures to the public, whose ecological heritage is in peril. Every effort must be made to identify and relocate dogs who pose a threat, and every unhappy incident reported must be analysed conclusively to identify the cause, following which steps should be taken to eliminate (or mitigate) that cause.

With sincere hopes, and warm regards,

Gayathri

PS- I am aware that the groups to whom I have addressed this email do not reach many sections of campus residents with a sincere concern for the problem. If you consider this message worth sharing, then please do reach them to other groups that you may be part of, in order to heighten our perception of the crisis and evoke a greater response.