Mumbai: Video showing deer eating plastic leaves environmentalists fuming
A video has surfaced on social media that has left wildlife experts and environmentalists fuming. The video shows a herd of deer feeding on garbage from a bunch of plastic bags, carelessly dumped near the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) office in Mumbai. It also shows a stray dog circling around the gang of six to seven deer while they were eating.
Freelance cinematographer Dipankar Sikder, who had shot the video, uploaded it on his Facebook page tagging Pawan Sharma, honorary wildlife warden of Thane. Sharma filed a complaint and also apprised SGNP director and chief conservator of forest, Anwar Ahmed. "The deer, while foraging for food, must have eaten plastics too. Moreover, the stray could have attacked. It's disturbing," said Sharma.
Meanwhile, Anwar informed that the garbage was left behind by a film crew, who had taken permission to shoot inside the park. Taking action on the misdeed, the national park officials have fined them Rs. 5,000, while emphasizing that the park remains clean otherwise. Sharma highlighted that not just forest department, the visitors are also liable to keep a protected forest like SGNP clean.
This is not the first time plastic menace has hit animals. Every year, cows, turtles, pigs (being scavengers) die horribly due to plastic intake. In January this year, an elephant died in Sabarimala after eating plastic, strewn over by tourists. A month later, a team of veterinary surgeons in Patna removed a whopping 80-kg mass of plastic from a 6-year-old cow's stomach.
