Amte son told to free orphanage animals

It has directed the Maharashtra Forest Department to seize all the animals at the animal orphanage painstakingly nurtured by Baba Amte’s son Padmashree Prakash Amte, better known for his humanitarian service to poor Gadchiroli tribals through his Lok Biradari Hospital since 1973. Strangely, the CZA has told the State Forest Department to release the animals in the forest when experts believe that even the wildest of tamed animals are susceptible to attacks from lesser animals.

CZA says the enclosures are not ‘‘congenial’’ to animal health and feeding cubicles haven’t been provided to some animals like jackals. Contrast this with what experts like Sally Walker, the Zoo Outreach Organisation founder, say.

‘‘Prakash Amte’s compassion and keen observation of animal life has enabled him to provide adequate, albeit simple, facilities for most animals,’’ she had once written in the reputed International Zoo News.

Reacting to the CZA order, Amte says, ‘‘If they had asked for improvements, we could have done something. But they took the drastic step.’’ The CZA also contends Amte has been acquiring the animals illegally when, actually, the state government had given a blanket permission to his animal orphanage in 1991.

Saying he hasn’t ‘‘acquired’’ the animals, Amte explains that tribals who come to his hospital for treatment often bring injured animals with them. ‘‘We have released many of them back in the jungle but some couldn’t be and we decided to keep them with us,’’ he says.

‘‘Recently, we tried to free an eagle but we had to get it back after a group of crows pounced upon him. If the two leopards and the host of other animals we have got are released in the jungles, they are most unlikely to survive,’’ Amte says. He cites examples of the deers which all got killed after being released from the Allapalli and Navegaon Park enclosures. Amte’s orphanage started with a small fawn he freed from a tribal’s clutches.

The tribals then kept bringing injured and orphaned animals to him and in a few years, Hemalkasa gradually transformed into an animal orphanage. It is now home to a variety of animals ranging from a giant squirrel to a lion, which was specially acquired from Nagpur’s Maharajbagh Zoo.