Death in New Delhi Zoo. Who’s responsible – Tiger or Human?

There was a horrific accident happened in New Delhi zoo on 23rd September 2014, when a white tiger killed a young man, who intentionally jump or unintentionally fall into the enclosure. The video of this accident was circulated all over social media and a good number people are watching it as their daily entertainment dose.

It is always sad when a life lost. People usually blamed the victim or the attacker but in this particular case, will it be possible that neither the victim nor the attacker is responsible for the lose of this life. From my perspective it’s the mentality and illiteracy of people gathered there did the murder.

As per the habit of any carnivores animal, they kill only when they are hungry or they feel threat from others. From the statement of the zoo officials, the tiger was fed a hour before the accident. So, the first reason is eliminated that tiger killed the man due to the hunger. The other supporting event is the behavior of the tiger in the video. The actions of the tiger was looking like it was playing with the man and not trying to kill him.

The reason of ‘feeling threat’ is also ruled out if we analyze the behavior of the tiger in the video. The tiger looks calm during the entire video and only licking and touching the man like in the way it lick or touch it’s cub affectionately. There is no action from the tiger which supports that tiger killed the man due to the threat.

Now let’s analyze the behavior of the human gathered there. They started shouting like anything when they see the man in the enclosure. The people should understand that it is tiger and not dog, which runs away if you shout and throw stones. The first thing is you should keep calm and silent when have any face off with any wild animal of felidae family. They will attack only when they are hungry or feel threat.

If we see the events happened in the zoo, the tiger was playing with the man and had no intention of hurting him. It was looking towards the directions where people were shouting even then it did not hurt the man. Then somebody threw the stone, on which tiger took a step back and then charged towards the man but not to kill. If tiger want to kill the man it attacks him using it’s claw.  But instead of that it covered the man under it’s own body and caught him from the neck and then drag him away. This behavior is not of killing the man but to took him away from that location. Tigers caught from the neck when they took their cub or any other younger animal from one place to another. Their are various videos to supporting them, just google it. Here instead of cub, it caught the man but the man is heavier than the cub, so tiger put extra effort to drag the man due to which it’s teeth was buried in the neck of the man and he got injured. Due to the injury and late response from the zoo keepers the man lost heavy blood and which results in his death.

The man could be saved if the visitors kept silent and not tried to scare the tiger. It’s the human who were more responsible for the death of the young man. It is evident from the voices in the video that they were enjoyed it and more interested in capturing the death of the man. The dialogues were like ‘इसकी तो वीडियो बनानी बनती है (It is needed to capture this in video)’, ‘ये तो मरना ही है अब (he has to die now)’ etc. Even after the two days of the death of the man, I am receiving the video from people on social media.

Is this something to celebrate? One life has been lost and we are circulating the death video like it is something great to share. Isn’t it inhumane? More than tiger, it was the human who is responsible for his death and death after death while celebrating it by sharing the video.

When we visit any of our friend or relative house, we ensure to maintain the decorum of their place then why don’t we follow the same while going to the zoo and wild life sanctuaries. It’s we who should follow their rules because zoo and wildlife sanctuaries belongs to animals and not us. That is their house.

From next time, read before visiting the house of the tigers and others animals. They will not spare you if you made mistake