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| Stray Cattle on Indian roads | | | Dr. Pragya Khanna | 5/27/2019 11:01:19 PM |
| If we look at the history of civilization, it is closely associated with animals. The domestic animals are known to have made possible the move from hunting, gathering and shifting cultivation to more settled life styles.
How have domestic animals played such a major part in the growth of human civilization? Animals liberate humans from the tough toil of heavy field work; animals make possible the transfer of natural resources and farm products to other communities for barter or sale; animals provide animal fat and protein for improved nutrition; animal milk aids infants to survive and grow when quantity of human milk is inadequate; animals provide leather, wool and horn for clothing and shelter; animal fat is used for lighting; dried manure from large animals is used as fuel for cooking and heating; animal power is used for extracting water from the ground and from rivers for domestic use and for irrigation; animals contribute to improved and integrated farming systems on cropped land; ruminant animals harvest natural vegetation that would otherwise not enter the human food chain; throughout human history, riding animals was the fastest way to travel over land until the invention of the railway in 1829, only 170 years ago. The domestication of animals was the first step to improve the quality of life through science and technology.
Given that animals are a resource of such immense significance, it is effortless to comprehend why people have held them in high esteem and have sometimes regarded them as sacred.
In rural society domestic animals provide the most personal and cherished association people have with nature, due in part to the fact that humans and animals live and work together in daily contact. The fact that people have possession of particular animals leads to a personal commitment to care for them which they do with complete loyalty and devotion. When people accompany cattle, sheep or goats into the natural environment for grazing they realize that animals and human communities are parts of the whole natural order. Neither can live in a broken environment. Unwarranted use of one component, for example over-grazing leading to dwindling vegetation, places human life and animals at risk. We are enough like animals to be kept modest; we are different enough from animals to be conscious of our exceptional responsibility towards the natural world.
In the past there has been quite a revolution brought about by the replacement of animals in modern society. We use fossil and nuclear fuels and hydro-electricity instead of animal power for farm work, general transport, cooking, light and heat; clothing of tropical plant or synthetic origin instead of local animal products; inorganic fertilizers on farms instead of animal manure; animal protein but not animal fat. International trade and refrigeration of food have released us from the need to keep animals nearby. We now want animals only for food and, as a by-product, for leather and wool. However, the rising demand for sport and companion animals does not substitute the older association as we bring these pets into our highly advanced isolation.
In the most urbanized places now we see animals exclusively as an economic resource, concealed away in distant locations with the purpose of serving the market economy with animal products of high hygienic and consumption quality. The market is disinterested in the other traditional contributions of animals to human life. Our isolation from the environment that supports us is obvious when many urban residents are apprehensive in the presence of domestic animals and when manure, animal smells and animal noises seem outlandish and embarrassing.
We live in a sort of plastic bubble where everything in life is controlled and the rhythms and uncertainties of nature have largely been tamed. People in developed countries, comprise about 20% of the world population and consume 80% of world production of milk and dairy products and 66% of world beef production. These figures for animal products indicate our levels of consumption of most natural resources including energy, food and water. If we continue to inflate the bubble with gross over-consumption it will burst.
The earth systems are stout and can absorb much change; but gigantic over-use, pollution and exploitation on an escalating scale can only lead to long-term breakdown that is irretrievable on our time-scale.
We pay a price. Essentially, it will mainly be paid by future generations, which makes it less frightening to us. Today our focus is upon profit, reduced unit costs, the desire to make more money this year than last and the domination of capital and its cost. All these demands urge upon the livestock producer the need to succeed as a business person and to neglect the long-standing practices of sustainable production, care of animals and good husbandry of the environment.
We have lost touch with the values that our ancestors learned from their animals. They knew that if you want your cow to have a calf and to produce milk next year, you cannot take all the resources of the cow this year. Resources need husbanding if they are to produce sustainably in perpetuity.
Today cows can be seen roaming on busy roads in cities. Sadly, stray cows have been a part of Indian urban life for as long as anyone can remember, but they've become increasingly problematic in recent years, with the development of infrastructure and the increase in the number of cars driving on Indian roads. Urban cows don't fear traffic, so it's not unusual to see them loitering in the middle of the road, unperturbed by honking or drivers trying to scare them away. Back in April 2018, authorities in Punjab announced that stray cows involved in traffic accidents have killed 300 people in the last 30 months. And that's just in one state.
Most of these cows constantly eat food from garbage and leftovers. Even though it may not be obvious, many of them are actually diseased or sick. So, drinking their milk or consuming any by-product is raising the health concerns.
There is overwhelming evidence that animals are reservoirs for several of the most important food-borne and waterborne agents. Manure and wastewater from animal feeding operations have the potential to contribute pathogens and pollutants, such as antibiotics, nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus), hormones, sediments, heavy metals, organic matter, and ammonia, to the environment and eventually could impact human health. Some of the illnesses resulting from these agents cause only temporary health problems, while others cause severe crises and even death.
Most of these cows come from illegal or unregistered roadside dairies and cattle sheds; many are actually left by owners because they become old, stop giving milk or they cannot afford them any further. Non-milking cattle are also left loose to save on their feed. The owners, after milking the cattle, let them loose so that they can graze outside. Non-milking cattle are also left loose to save on their feed.
The problems of impounding these cattle are many:
o The paucity of trained man power with the Municipal Corporation to catch and load them in a truck.
o Lack of Gaushalas with adequate space.
o The tendency of the neighbouring towns/cities to catch their stray cattle and leave them outside near the next city
o Many lives have already been lost and many others have been injured due to accidents involving stray cattle, especially in rainy season, due to the cow dung roads becomes slippery which invites the road accident in great way.
Not only this, the country's biggest cities are filled with lot of urban wildlife, most noticeably the millions of stray cows and dogs living on India's streets. We even find cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, chickens, monkeys and camels anywhere. But cows are the most frequently seen and large in number. They walk in the street with the cars. They nap on the side of the road. They eat trash near tourist areas and scrounge for food near markets. They're cherished, but yet malnourished and neglected.
We may even see dead animal skeletons on the side of the road, completely picked clean of any flesh. I saw a hungry little dog eating a pig's head in the middle of the street while people walked past as if it was no big deal.
The huge amounts of farm animals in general that live on the streets of India definitely contribute to the filth there, and the stink. Parts of India smell very much like a farm and are dirtier than one.
Indeed, the question is not whether to allow animals, not to speak of cows, in cities or not; it is whether humans have the right to make rules for animals. Human beings are given enough space to live peacefully on the earth but due to their increasingly greedy nature and tendency to control, they are capturing more areas, including in waters and in the space.
Gadgets, cars, planes, toys, homes, appliances…we consume at a phenomenal rate, yet the other species are sometimes blamed for environmental destruction, the reality is that we as consumers are in every case connected to the wholesale destruction of the very planet we live on and the life on it, at the same time we are proud of what we have made thinking that we have outdone the Creator.
I quote the wisdom of Henry Beston, "We patronize the animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they are more finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth." |
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