Aditi Gain Wildlife Crusader
This story, chronicled by Prasanta Paul, celebrates the unsung Aditi Gain wildlife crusader. Meet this young student from West Bengal fighting for animal freedom.
Some lesser known, unsung sentinels of nature have been waging a crusade against poaching and mindless killings of animals in and around our neighbouring habitats days and months on end.
Animals, these crusaders argue, are born free and mankind must ensure their freedom from bondage and shackles of torture. The right place for the birds are skies where their freedom takes a shape and a meaning.
As the country is celebrating its 79th Independence Day, EIS (eastindiastory.com) has got in touch with one such young crusader in a humble semi-urban locality of West Bengal; the warrior has been fighting a lone battle single-handedly to kindle awareness among the locals and beyond for preserving the freedom of the animals in their natural habitat.
Meet Aditi Gain, a young wildlife enthusiast and a second year student of Zoology Honours, whose initial stint as a passionate animal watcher since she was four, has slowly blossomed into a devoted love for the wild.
Hardly has Aditi stepped into her teens when she has amassed both humorous and nerve-wracking anecdotes from the places around her tiny home at Duttapukur in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.
She won’t indulge in pastoral storytelling to EIS though; rather a casual yet piercing conversation with her is kind of a clear ode to the earliest naturalists who didn’t have cameras and hence, relied more on grey matter than anything else.
Self-Grooming Period
She recounts her time through her childhood years; and we start to see her relationship with the natural world around her evolve and her personal views take shape as her interactions with wildlife grow more and more complex.
She traces her interest in wildlife especially reptiles since she was barely a toddler of 4 or 5; “I began feeling bad about the way people mercilessly killed them when I saw one or two such brutalities in our neighbourhood” recalls Aditi.
She was referring to an incident in which people caned to death a cobra sibling when she was in her 8th standard. A kind of ‘snake phobia’ born out of a genetic fear, irrespective of whether they are venomous or non-venomous, is solely responsible for this wanton killing of snakes, explains Aditi.
In fact, her passionate interest in the study and rescue of innocent animals in danger, obviously due to uncalled-for human interference, has probably prompted her to opt for an honours course in Zoology.
Influence of National Geography & Animal Planet
The actual interest and realisation started creeping in when she used to spend hours on end watching episodes of National Geography and Animal Planet on TV which detail various programmes on reptiles, birds and other animals.
Growing up on National Geography and wildlife encyclopedias, she has idolised figures such as Steve Irwin and Ullas Karanth. She credits her parents for playing a crucial role in supporting her interests — frequently inspiring her with various incentives.
“This only grew further during the Covid-enforced lockdown and my curiosity increased rapidly,” adds Aditi. Her relationship with the natural world took a deeper root when she decided to get herself properly trained.
She approached a trainer in the West Bengal Snake Park at Duttapukur in North 24 Parganas district after the lockdown was lifted in 2020. The trainer Pintu Halder advised her to devote initial training on non-venomous snakes before switching over to venomous ones.
Encounters with the wild
Across all of Aditi’s tales, one theme remains constant; her deep curiosity about the natural world. EIS received a thumping ‘NO’ to a question whether during her exploits so far, she has received any gender sensitive remark from people for being a female in the neighbourhood to have embarked on this ‘thankless’ venture.
“If the males can, why can’t we?” was a clear shot assertion from Aditi.
Wildlife interactions, she reminds us, can be as dangerous as they are incredible. Well, so far, she can’t recall any incident that might have nearly gone wrong under circumstances leading to excessive apprehension or otherwise.
India continues to be significantly affected by snakebite cases, and most of the victims have neither the choice about which species they get bitten by, nor the quick access to medical care.
An Evolving Relationship with Nature
Gradually, Aditi’s rescue-and-release mission has now spread to monitor lizards, such variety of birds as wide-throated Kingfisher and Black-crowned Night Heron, Indian Scops owl and Indian flag shell Turtles among others. She is too keen to increase more animal specimens in the list!
As a child, she had never imagined herself to be one of the self-taught saviours of the wildlife. She remembers standing near the edge of a pond, watching a sibling of the Black-crowned Night Heron struggling to fly for more than an hour.
She was plagued by the question, “Would I be interfering with the natural order of things if I choose to save this bird or an owl? Should you save a creature’s life in the wild if you could?”
She calls it one of the most pivotal moments of her life — an experience that felt like a true calling, and one that left her with a fierce sense of belonging to the wild.
She found an Asian Palm civet that was caught by locals and left beside a bush; it was almost dying.
“I treated it properly and then handed the civet over to the forest department officials,” Aditi asserts. “Then, there was a cobra in deep trouble; I chased it deep into the forest before rescuing and releasing it in the wild after some treatment.”
The Modus Operandi
Any wildlife in danger in the vicinity of the district where Aditi lives? She is just a phone call away. After having assessed the depth and extent of the problem, she rushes to the place, keeping the local Forest Ranger on the loop.
She remembers an encounter whose retelling needs a stronger warning for its young urban readers who may not know their non-venomous snakes from venomous ones or how to rescue an owl at night that had sustained injury and was unable to fly.
Aditi has quite a vehement feeling against any unethical rescue operation. Without proper training and adequate safety gear, one must not indulge in any amateurish attempt as this may prove to be fatal either way, she argues.
Finally, her disillusionment is gut-wrenching as she realises a key fact — wildlife, in many places, has become a spectacle, exploited and intruded upon for tourism.
It is a complex reality where both human needs and wildlife needs often clash, yet are deeply intertwined.
“I would endeavour to contribute my bit to restore a semblance of balance if I could crack the Indian Forest Service (IFS) a few years later,” Aditi bids adieu with her final assertion.
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