Recently, I visited the Sariska wildlife sanctuary. Being a nature enthusiast, I was thrilled by the thought of going there and getting a piece of nature. Just at a distance of 170 kms from Delhi, it was supposed to be a nice bet. The route was good and roads (for a change) were fun to drive. The Aravalis played a great part in adding on to the beauty of the route.
However, the time I reached Sariska my enthusiasm started fading away. While the emphasis here is not on the Sariska Palace Hotel, where we stayed, which was anyways ill managed…. The disappointment was more to do with the maintenance of the Sariska sanctuary and the way the things were handled by the so called management of the sanctuary.
Once famous for its tigers and enriched fauna & flora, we soon came to know that the place has no more native tigers and the whole area has got only 3 tigers which have recently been shifted from a nearby sanctuary (Ranthambhor). There is a great rush among the people to see the tigers, even though it’s hard to locate just 3 of them in an area spread across hundreds of square kilometers. And, why not a rush… after all, these tigers are going to extinct soon, so why not get a glimpse of them now and click some pictures. In few years, they will be a thing of the past like mammoths, dinosaurs and many others. The efforts will be then made to recreate them from their preserved DNAs. Ironical?
Sariska faced a famine few years ago, but nothing much has been done to take care of the animals. There are just 3 shrinking water bodies which are artificially filled to make sure that the animals atleast get some water to drink. At any point of time on an ordinary day, the sanctuary has atleast 400 – 500 fuel guzzling jeeps run by local people who earn their living by selling hopes to show Tigers. Did anyone notice the amount of pollution the jeeps must be causing? And I am sure that the animals there don’t know anything about the pollution masks yet. Apart from that, a lot of passenger buses are allowed to cross the sanctuary during the day. Pity !!!
Many of these issues have made this place completely unsuitable for habitation. The sanctuary has become a sad state of affairs and one tends to feel too bad for the fauna out there. I am not sure till how long this ecosystem will survive. You never know, in some time one of the builders may offer some residential colony to the animals for a luxurious life.
And I also can’t hope that the government will do something soon on this, because we know how it works. The authorities will wait for everything to vanish when another PM will get up and pose questions and by then, it will be too late !!
