I WOULD like to dedicate this article to the pregnant elephant that was abused beyond imagination by locals in Kerala’s Palakkad district. She was later named Vinayaki. She was only 15 years old.

Vinayaki had left the national park in the Silent Valley and meandered into a nearby village in search of food. It is believed that she had eaten an explosive-laden pineapple, as farmers in India’s south often use firecrackers and explosives in fruits to protect their land and crops from wild animals.

So powerful was the explosion that her tongue and mouth were destroyed, and according to forestry officer Mohan Krishan, she must have walked around in the village for days, in pain and hunger. She was unable to eat anything because of her injuries. He added that “she must have been more worried about the child inside her than her own hunger”.

On May 27, Vinayaki succumbed to her debilitating injuries. She took her last breath while standing in the Velliyar River.

In tandem with what was mentioned by Elisabeth Costello in J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals, “anyone who says that life matters less to animals than it does to us has not held in his hands an animal fighting for its life. The whole of the being of the animal is thrown into that fight, without reserve”.

Vinayaki had put up a great fight to survive for the calf she was carrying, enduring a slow, agonising death over more than 14 days. How could such an awful, grotesque tragedy happen?

As human populations multiply and expand, natural habitats wither and become fragmented, and livestock density in protected areas increases, we will inevitably see a surge in human-wildlife conflicts.

Such conflicts result in negative consequences for people, animals, resources and habitats. They happen when human populations overlap with established wildlife territories, creating competition for space and resources.

From orangutans on oil palm plantations, bears and wolves killing livestock in Europe and rhinos destroying crops in Nepal to baboons in Namibia attacking cattle, the problem is universal, affecting both the rich and poor, and is bad news for all concerned.

The costs are high. People lose crops, livestock, properties, and sometimes their lives. Animals, many already vulnerable, are often destroyed in retaliation or to prevent future conflicts.

Conservationists have warned that our planet is on the brink of a “sixth great extinction” of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and diseases, and climate change.

Ergo, it is unprejudiced to say that humans are causing life on Earth to vanish. In the words of Paul Ralph Ehrlich, an American biologist best known for his warnings about the consequences of population growth and limited resources: “In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it perches.”

So, I would like to end this article with a phrase by Anthony Douglas William, a Canadian spiritualist, writer and animal rights activist, from his masterpiece Inside the Divine Pattern: “When we lose an animal species to extinction, we lose part of our family.” – June 10, 2020.

* Suzianah Nhazzla Ismail reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.