Odisha: No selfie with wildlife campaign gains ground

BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to dissuade youths from taking selfie with wild animals and create awareness, a leading rescue organisation Snake Helpline on Sunday started an anti-selfie movement ‘no selfie with wildlife’ across the State.

About 80 wildlife activists from different parts of the State participated in the movement and vowed to fight against the selfie mania which is catching up among youths leading to untimely deaths.
General Secretary of Snake Helpline and honorary Wildlife Warden Subhendu Mallik said people are falling victim to their penchant for selfies with wildlife at wrong places. “Along with selfies at dangerous places, the recent trend of obsession with wildlife has made it more critical. We are concerned over the deaths of human  as well as wildlife due to selfie mania. We hope the movement will be helpful to have a better impact as we would create awareness on the negative effects of selfie,” Mallik said.

According to reports, three persons had lost their lives while taking selfies with wild elephants in the State in the recent past. Besides  elephants, snake is another dangerous wildlife with which taking selfie can always be proved fatal. 

Many snake rescuers and spectators had also faced health and legal difficulties for selfie with snakes. What has left the wildlife lovers concerned is that the demand for selfie with wildlife is growing despite frequent mishaps.“The wildlife selfie mania is a global phenomenon with deaths of rare dolphins, sharks, peacocks and mute swans. The animals and birds are unnecessarily tortured during the process of getting better selfie,” Mallik pointed out.

Speaking on the occasion, Nandankanan Deputy Conservator of Forests KL Purohit said people especially youths are after the selfie and they do this for social media only.“But they must know that selfie or any photo with wildlife is banned by Wildlife Crime Control Bureau of India. Youths should to do something constructive and certainly not promote selfie which results in destruction of both human and wildlife,” he advised.

Assistant Conservator of Forests Ashok Mishra described the technical difficulties of getting ex-gratia after death caused by wild animals during taking selfie. Among others, medicine specialist of Capital Hospital Dr Niranjan Padhy also spoke.