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Beavers are causing crops to get flooded, seagull attacks can be terrifying and sea-eagles do kill a low level of lambs. But there is a remarkable contrast between the intolerance shown by those of us in degraded landscapes, where all our top predators were exterminated long before our time, and the willingness to suffer loss, or even risk injury and death, by people who still live alongside far more dangerous animals.
In India, where Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book was set, many farmers sit around fires by night to guard their crops from hungry elephants which sometimes cause human deaths. Yet, in A Rocha India’s experience, villagers do not call for the animals to be culled: they want these awesome giants to survive.
In India this year, after a Leopard entered a Bangalore school and mauled six men, it was captured and later released into the wild. The Forest Department asked A Rocha to run an education programme training teachers and students about these big cats and how to react if they encounter one – the aim is to protect the animals, as well as the people.
Of course, our world views are different. But a Christian, or post-Christian society, has no excuse. One of the earliest pieces of ecological literature is in the Bible. Psalm 104 (especially verses 10–24) describes God as Creator and Sustainer: the one who supplies food for every living thing. Here, Man is just one small part of nature, whilst Lions Panthera leo, Wild Asses Equus hemionus, Wild Goats Capra aegagrus and a host of other mammals and birds flourish and thrive. The psalmist says to God, ‘In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.’
I wonder, can some of us learn wisdom and a deeper respect for our fellow-creatures from this ancient writer and the peoples who still live alongside Shere Khan, Bagheera and Kaa?
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