So, why don’t we love birds and animals with whom we share this Planet Earth?

This is a question which a child and sadly these days only a child may ask and not the so-called grownups. As parents, many here must have complained previously that their children don’t take any interest or liking towards birds and animals but have you ever stopped for a moment as to why don’t they? Well, to put it bluntly, because you the adults don’t show any gratitude or love or affection towards them. You hope that one day your child will really have fun playing with animals and love their company but all he has done is seen these animals from a distance on a television or in a magazine, he hasn’t yet confronted them face to face. Its only when you’ll take your children to zoos, national parks, sanctuaries, conservation sites, acquariums, forest reserves, on a safari tour and make them see with their own naked eyes the regality of these beasts in the wild and in the outside real world will then they generate enough awe and respect to never harm and hurt these animals ever. It’s only when they’ll realize how difficult it becomes for an animal who can’t speak a human language to survive when nature, its only friend and protector turns ugly due to human intervention and kills him rather than takes care of him. Animals are not difficult to understand, it’s just that humans are so engulfed with their own prejudice and superiority and bigotry that they think that animals hardly matter in the grand scheme of things.

 Now, If we ask Steven Pinker, the philosopher, writer about our time right now in the whole gamut of historical events since we became human from Homo Neanderthals and started walking bi-pedal, he’ll hash out a whole polemic of how we the humans are living in the best of times ever, how things are rosy and dandy for everyone in this world compared to the whole evolution of our species since many a millennia ago and he’ll also say we are having the best of everything that this mother earth has to offer and provide to us. Well, superficially it does seem so but if you just look closely enough, you’ll realize this earth isn’t just spinning, it has been sent for a toss by humans - the most dominant and intelligent of all species (though there is the dolphin, the elephant and the owl but no one has sent a StarMan in a red cherry Roadster in space yet except the humans), the top of the food chain, the ultimate guzzler of all natural resources and leaving behind solid waste.

And while we all are so happy to gratify ourselves all the time, what we do on this planet has a cumulative and ripple effect on every other organism with whom we share, yes share this third rock from the sun. But we humans never see the big picture, all we think of earth is that it’s a pale blue dot in the vastness of the universe and nothing much of significance except for us, the humans. And so the way we are plundering and pillage every habitat and ecology which happens to be the house and home of the countless beings of every size and hue has put them on a list where no one knows for how long that whole species will survive and how or whether they will soon be eradicated and become extinct. Kids these days identity all the logos and jingles of corporate brands but they hardly are attuned to nature’s variety of animals and birds calls or even their names or appearances.

Such has become our existence that we are now completely cut off from the millions of other species sharing, yes sharing this planet with us and we only know about the celebrities, whether real or of YouTube, as to what they are up to these days. Hence, we all need to make sure that if it’s not the government or our schools or colleges who are informing our children about the natural world around us, then it’s up to us to make sure that we do so.

So what exactly is happening with our animal kingdom and why is it that 90% species of birds and animals don’t survive for generations but some do. To know this, you’ll have to make yourself aware of a thing called conservation status which is:

Conservation Status of any group of organisms or species indicates whether the group still exists and how likely the group is to become extinct completely in the coming near future. Now many factors are taken into account when assessing the conservation status: not just simply the number of individuals of a group remaining, but the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success rates, and known threats. Various systems of conservation status exist and are in use at international, multi-country, national and local levels as well as for consumer use.

Among the International Systems, the two most followed scales are:

1.       The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the best known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system. Species are classified by the IUCN Red List into nine groups set through criteria such as rate of decline, population size, area of geographic distribution, and degree of population and distribution fragmentation. They also included species that have gone extinct since 500 A.D. When discussing the IUCN Red List, the official term ‘Threatened’ is a grouping of three categories, critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable, which is as follows:

Extinct – (EX) – No known individuals remaining

Extinct in the Wild (EW) – Known only to survive in captivity or as a naturalized population outside its historic range

Critically Endangered (CR) – Extremely high risk of extinction in the wild

Endangered (EN) – High risk of extinction in the wild

Vulnerable (VU) – High risk of endangerment in the wild

Near Threatened (NT) – Likely to become endangered in the near future

Least Concern (LC) – Lowest risk or does not qualify for a higher risk category. Widespread and abundant groups of animals are included in this category

Data Deficient (DD) – Not enough data to make an assessment of its risk of extinction

Not Evaluated (NE) – Has not yet evaluated against the criteria.

2.     The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. Many countries require CITES permits when importing plants and animals listed on CITES.

For further information, you can refer to a whole spectrum of sites available on internet but before you do so make sure you take your kids on a joy ride of nature and make them come into close contact with all these different birds and animals, insects and reptiles that are out there. Of course, precaution is to be taken and guidance should be sought before you venture out but the moment the kids will behold the sight of vast forests and green jungles they will thank Providence for having created so much life everywhere.