NEWS
INDIA: KARNATAKA: FOR THE LOVE OF AN EAGLE..
December 12, 2010, 2:31PM MT
By Adithya Raghavan, Guest Writer
A chance encounter leads to the rescue of a beautiful eagle in Karnataka.
It was during my morning walk to work, and so naturally I was dressed for the office, in a light blue shirt tucked in and a black vest on top, carrying my glossy corporate diary and a book on ‘Fasting’ by Ehret.
The sight was rare … an eagle that had gotten itself injured and had fallen down into a deep ditch below, still breathing and alive. The eagle seemed helpless, and the ditch was about my height – six feet deep. The water was a small stream, relatively clean from rain the night before and running past the hurt eagle’s body.
I had to do it. I put my diary and the book on the pavement and carefully climbed down the washed concrete…attempting to rescue him. A young man from afar yelled, “Watch out!”. He’d tried the same thing a moment before, and the eagle had been defending itself, with its sharp talon and beak.
One couldn’t do anything without a glove or at least a gunny bag, we realized. I had to go on, leaving it behind.
My mind couldn't rest
After a few hours at work, my mind couldn’t rest, and I returned to the spot again. This time, I had another colleague for a volunteer named ‘Kiran’. We were now carrying an old discarded net that I found on the roadside, a stick, and a cotton rope.
The eagle had already been delivered outside the ditch by some rescuer .. however, it still seemed prone and was vulnerable to the several stray dogs on the street and the red ants that had begun to gather. The eagle, however, was alive, its eyes wide open and blinking, its body breathing fast. As we stood, a little afraid to get near, a road sweeper, as a God-send, came past, mumbling about the situation, and did the Gods’ work of toppling the eagle into our net that I’d thrown on top of it. The eagle was now nestled in my net, calm, and ready to be transported.
While I thought the eagle just needed a secure place to rest and recuperate, Kiran insisted that we take it to the government vet hospital in Hebbal that he knew of.. some 22 kilometers from Whitefield, where we worked.
It was a hot and sunny afternoon with a clear blue sky and some silvery bright clouds toward the northern horizon, the direction we now had to take. I decided against a rickshaw since my home was just a few minutes away. I said we could use my car to drive the eagle down to the vet’s.
As we went in to collect the car keys, my mom at home was alarmed to see the big eagle, an unusual visitor, its talons curled up and the bird alive in the net. She told us to hurry.
I drove fast, racing for half an hour through Bangalore traffic, the eagle hanging in the net, awaiting medical help.
Seeing the vets confidently handle the bird was re-assuring. The place was serene and had a smell of animals, with several three-legged and other handicapped dogs – all calmly resting together, all over the place. Maybe the eagle was meant to live this day, I thought.
Their territory for ages
Dr. Lingaraj wisely commented… “You and me are the reason this eagle is hurt today. We as a civilization now have tall glass buildings and have replaced the glory of flora and fauna with our violent urban intrusions. I tell people who complain of monkeys and snakes getting on to their balcony and into their home… they aren’t the intruders. We have encroached into what was their territory for ages. The eagles get blinded by the reflection of sunlight from our buildings and go crashing onto the ground… falling down blind with little chance of survival.”
What he said sounded very right to me.
Images of hurt animals run over on urban and rural roads alike, dogs, snakes, frogs, butterflies, insects and so, on the Indian roads, flashed through my mind. I reflected on the nomadic life of ancient Indian Yogis who apparently stayed no more than three days in a place and rested throughout rainy season, just so that they wouldn’t trample on smaller insects on their way.. and the sharp contrast we’d collectively come to, with our lives today, in our vastly mechanized age of urbanity.
We didn’t know if we had saved the eagle yet. We named it ‘Kadi’ – combining our two names, Kiran and Adi.
Back to the forests--it is hoped
The doctors examined it and said the eagle had fractured one of its legs and was severely dehydrated and weak. Its respiratory system had to get back to a rhythm, and its mouth had a thin trickle of red blood that meant it had to be examined for internal injuries. The vet hastened to give it saline injections and said it would rest and regain energy, after which it would be transferred to Bannergatta National Park, which now had a facility for MRI, surgery, etc. After the bird recuperated, they’d release it into the forests. However, we wouldn’t receive updates once it was transferred from here.
Maybe the eagle was meant to keep going up to this point to reach good and able hands in order to survive into a still-to-be-lived ‘eagle future’. Kiran softly touched its feathers and bade it goodbye.. with requests to the doctors that he’d be visiting again to know if it survived this day. To me, this wasn’t an act of sympathy, but it had been a necessary purpose that had to be fulfilled.
As a green activist at the DoGreen Foundation I recalled a recent conversation with a fellow supporter – one Howard Moore, who’d recently said – ‘Life is a rich vein, indeed!’.
What you can do
To visit the website of Do Green, click here.
To read more about the Bannerghatta National Park, click here.
Photos:
Top photo: Michael Smith / Dreamstime.com / Serpent Crested Eagle
Second photo: Nickolay Stanev / Dreamstime.com / Serpent Crested Eagle
Third photo: Sharon St Joan / In one of the forests south of Bangalore, two peacocks are barely visible in the clearing.
1 comment:
Showing sympathy to fellow creatures, is good. You may not be able to help everyone, but you had done what you can do.
Good job guyz. May god bless that eagle with life :)
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