Animal activism over the last five years has worked and the results are visible. Snake charmers have almost vanished from the city.
Animal welfare organisations could find only one snake charmer throughout the day and the nuisance at Sanjay Gandhi National Park on the eve of Mahashivratri too has considerably reduced.
Col (Retd) JC Khanna, secretary of Bombay Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BSPCA), while speaking about a considerable decline in the number of cases said, “In 2004, we rescued 15 snakes, in 2005 the number came down to 10, and in 2006 and 2007 it came down to eight and five respectively.”
Animal welfare organisations like Plant and Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), Mumbai and BSPCA had also made adequate arrangements for rescuing snakes in the city. However, only one snake charmer, was located during the day. “We were patrolling the city throughout the day. But were informed only about one snake charmer near the Masjid station. The snake was rescued and released in the wild,” said Sunish Subramanian of PAWS, Mumbai.
The conservation department of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), under the banner of City Forest Project had also conducted a public awareness campaign at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park on Thursday to prevent the forest fires and the damage done by plastic,”
Krishna Tiwari of City Forests project said. With the help of 150 odd volunteers, we managed to minimise the disturbance to flora and fauna in the national park, Tiwari added.
A couple of incidents of forest fire that were reported during the day were brought under control with the help of forest department officials. The volunteers also recovered more than 2 lakh plastic bags during the day.
