Interview with Kartick Satyanarayan
Could you tell us briefly about the work done by yourself and Wildlife SOS in India? What are the key projects that you focus on?
Wildlife SOS was established in 1995 by myself and co-founder Geeta Seshamani with an aim to help protect India’s wealth of wildlife and severely threatened biodiversity. The institution was founded on the belief that by providing sustainable alternative livelihoods and education to indigenous communities dependent on wildlife resources, sustainable models of wildlife protection and conservation could be created. Our aim is to protect and preserve India’s wildlife, operate rehabilitation centres for wildlife in distress, conserve habitats, raise awareness, conduct research, study biodiversity and provide sustainable alternative livelihoods for communities otherwise dependent on wildlife to earn a livelihood.
Wildlife SOS’s greatest accolade has been to successfully end the illegal and barbaric practice of dancing bears in India. We have rescued 628 endangered sloth bears from illegal custody while providing guidance to nomadic communities to help establish them in alternative sustainable and legal livelihoods. This is seen internationally as a unique successful sustainable conservation model. We did this in partnership with the Government and the indigenous communities mainly to put an end to the poaching and trafficking of bear cubs.
We also work extensively to protect elephants in India. Wildlife SOS established India’s first elephant hospital, which is a part of the Elephant Conservation and Care Centre Camp in Uttar Pradesh. The goal of our elephant project is to help prevent illegal trafficking of elephants while improving the lives of the elephants that live in captivity. Wildlife SOS currently runs two elephant care facilities in India. Refuse to Ride is a resource website we recently created to sensitise tourists to the plight of elephants that give joyrides. If tourists realise the torture the elephants suffer just so they can have a joyride, then this could potentially reduce the demand for illegal trafficking of elephant calves for this vile industry and help end the cruel abuse they suffer to make them rideable.
Wildlife SOS also works with birds, leopards, Asiatic black bears (moon bears), Himalayan brown bears and other species that are in intense human-wildlife conflict situations in India, particularly in the states of Jammu and Kashmir (black bears, brown bears and leopards) and Maharashtra (leopards). Wildlife SOS runs a bear orphanage for black bears in Kashmir and a rescue centre for leopards in Maharashtra. Our mission is to encourage tolerance towards our wild species and help people learn to coexist with them.
Additionally, we run a 24-hour rescue hotline in three states: Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Our rescue team works round the clock attending to distress calls from members of the public, police, animal-lovers and other organisations who have found wild animals in peril or caught in conflict situations.