News
Haryana: Jackal rescued from a well
December 10, 2008, 10:8PM MT
By Sharon St. Joan
After Wildlife SOS turns snake charmers into wildlife rescuers
After Wildlife SOS turns snake charmers into wildlife rescuers
By Vasudha Mehta, Wildlife SOS Communications Director
The northwestern Indian state of Haryana surrounds the capital, New Delhi, on three sides. The Palwal District lies just south of New Delhi. Haryana has played a key role, over thousands of years, in the legendary, epic history of India…
The Golden Jackal is the only species of jackal that is found outside Africa, and scientists now tend to believe that the golden jackal is much more closely related to the wolf, the domestic dog and the coyote than to the other species of jackal…Editor
It was a pleasant winter afternoon, and the Wildlife S.O.S. Rescue Team at Delhi, primarily comprising members of the rehabilitated snake charmer community, got a call from the Wildlife Warden of Palwal, in Haryana, about a young jackal being stuck down in a 20 feet deep well in a village. The poor jackal had been in the well for three days already, and none of the villagers could think of a way to bring it out!
Promptly our team of four made the 60 kilometer (37 miles) journey to Palwal and, in an operation lasting a flat fifteen minutes, went inside the well with the help of a rope and lifted the Jackal out bodily. The animal seemed to know they came with no intent to harm because he neither bit them nor offered resistance. In retrospect, the team wondered if they could have done the rescue more scientifically keeping in mind the risk of rabies and that the jackal could be vicious, but certainly it could not have been more efficient, and in the long run all was well that ended well.
"It is nothing short of a miracle that even after three days of being stuck in this deep well, the jackal was fit and fine and had not even sustained any injury from the deep fall," said Ram Singh, a member of the Wildlife S.O.S. Rescue Team.
After the rescue, the jackal was examined by a vet and released by the Haryana Wildlife Department officials into the forests nearby.
"The members of the Nath tribe of snake charmers are naturally skilled in handling wild animals, and we at Wildlife S.O.S have gainfully used their skills and employed them as part of our rescue team in Delhi to carry out wildlife rescues. They have left their snake charming days far behind them and now have been responsible for saving the lives of many wild animals stuck in the most precarious of positions. This is a heartening story of the transformation of a tribe shedding their nomadic professions that required them to trap and kill animals to now turning full-time animal rescuers," says Geeta Seshamani, Co-founder, Wildlife S.O.S.
What you can do
To visit the website of Wildlife S.O.S., please go to
http://www.wildlifesos.org
Posted by Sharon St. Joan, Best Friends network
Top photo: Lee R. Berger / Wikipedia / Golden jackal in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.
Second photo: Wildlife S.O.S. / the jackal rescued from the well, frightened, but soon released!