Today marks one year from the date that we witnessed the unfortunate incident where an Indian Gaur entered Pune City and lost its life. While we remember feeling deeply frustrated and anguished by the chaos that led to its death, today, one year from then, it is with pride that we share this video - a testament to the progress made by multiple stakeholders in Pune on how they handle Human-Wildlife Conflict scenarios today, especially ones which involve wildlife straying into cities or spaces which pose a risk to them as well as human lives.
On 21st December, 2020 we had conducted a Wildlife Conflict Response Management training program at RESQ attended by the Forest, Police, State Animal Husbandry, Fire Departments, members of the media and several NGOs to highlight roles and responsibilities as well as coordination protocols during a conflict scenario.
While there have multiple Human-Wildlife incidents after that day, today - not one, but three Indian Gaurs were sighted stuck in a three-sided compound area right off the Pune-Bangalore highway. People had begun gathering when we were alerted about the situation and requested to come for help.
Bhor Forest Department coordinated with Highway Police, while the RESQ team and Forest officers monitored the animals ensuring they were kept away from the heavy traffic until they received clearance from the teams creating a safe passage for it across the highway. Once the traffic was halted and silence maintained for about 15 minutes, the team carefully drove them in the right direction and finally, the three Gaurs made it safely across the busy highway (that stood still for them at 1:00 pm in the afternoon!) and made a dash towards the hills nearby. Our drone followed them up to 2kms after which they took cover in a dense patch and went out of sight!
They'd had enough action for the day and as for the rest of us, we were just happy that the collaborative and well-coordinated rescue effort of so many entities had resulted in the best possible outcome for these beautiful gentle giants!
#gaur #indiangaur #IndianBison #wildlife #wildliferescue #resqct #pune