Connecting With Wildlife

Life is all about curating experiences. Sometimes you curate for yourself and sometimes you let someone else curate for you.

In the past, I’d been involved in projects regarding wildlife census back in Gujarat, my home state. During those projects I ‘d never connected with any wildlife head on, nor had I ever had to get up-close and intimate with them.

RESQ changed all that for me. As a cinematographer at RESQ, it is part of my job to document the sick or injured wild animals which arrive at the centre for treatment. I am often witness to the pain a wild animal goes through, the treatment it receives, the surgery it may undergo and then getting released back into the wild. Witnessing this day in and day out has triggered a new set of emotions which made me see 'life' in a unique perspective.

I started noticing smallest behavioral details in insects like ants to the relatively bigger mammals like hyenas. It's fascinating! It lead me to notice that there's a significant amount of wildlife co-existing freely in and around at the RESQ centre. Whenever I walked around at the centre and noticed such wildlife, I started to take out the time to document it because it makes me happy.

When you see well documented animal behaviours on television, it leaves you in a state of awe about how wildlife works and how nature takes care of itself. Nature and wildlife both find ways to always strike a balance and thrive despite the many challenges it faces. This is the awe I feel most days when RESQ releases the then injured or sick but now healthy wildlife back to their habitat to lead a normal life and become of that thriving cycle of life once more.

Your perspectives for animals is bound to change when you start noticing the wildlife co-existing around you.

What's your take away from this? Is it the same as mine? Notice, coexist and share!