Join us for an in-person seminar on the 18th of November (2pm to 3:30pm) with Prerna Singh Bindra: “For Dog’s Sake: Must Animal Welfare and Wildlife Conservation always be in Opposition?“.
Prerna Singh Bindra is a an active wildlife conservationist with over 15 years of experience. She has consulted with organizations and institutions at the international, national and grassroot level on wildlife, protected areas, policy, ecological and social impacts of development projects. Prerna is also one of India’s leading environmental journalists and travel writers and a PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge. She co-edited Wild Treasures: Reflections on Natural World Heritage Sites in Asia published by Wildlife Institute of India . Prerna’s book ‘The Vanishing: India’s Wildlife Crisis’ published by Penguin India was released in 2017 to wide acclaim. Prerna writes on wildlife, ecology, environment, travel and occasionally humour pieces. She has been widely published in magazines and newspapers including India Today, Hindustan Times, Lonely Planet, National Geographic Travellor, Oryx, Sanctuary Asia and others.
Abstract:
Conservation’s priority is identified as the protection of species and populations, not the welfare of individual nonhuman animals. Practitioners and organisations have downplayed the animal welfare concerns and ethics as part of their policy or conservation work.
These issues come into sharp focus in regarding hunting to aid community-based tourism models, culling of exotic species or impacts of domestic cats on bird populations (as seen in the UK). In India, threats posed by street dogs to endangered species is a raging issue in wildlife conservation, where it is also perceived as “misplaced compassion.”
My talk, from a practioner’s perspective, shall broadly cover this debate that places issues of animal welfare and ethics as opposed to principles and interests of wildlife conservation. This shall be grounded in one or two lives examples that are currently the focus of such debates in India but with global ramifications: Cheetah Reintroduction and a large private zoo with a collection of ~150,000 animals across 2,000 species. I will then move onto providing this perspective through the lens of street dogs impacts on wildlife, and a way forward.