We have become so much used to visiting to zoos that we have forgotten that wild animals also have their natural habitat where they live their own life in their own way. We have developed a very wrong culture of zoo that children from their childhood made impression in their mind that animals are found in zoos and can be sighted any time easily at convenient time.
Actually by visiting zoo we can not get any actual information about wild animal's life and their natural behavior. Opposite to that unknowingly we contribute in cruelty happening towards wild animals, while having perception in mind that visiting zoo makes us animal lover.
Recently I got a chance to visit leopard century with family at Jawai, Rajasthan, India. It was my first experience to sight a leopard at his natural habitat. Opposite to visiting zoo it was completely different. Just to have a glimpse of this wild beauty at his place we left our bus about half a kilometer far and moved ahead silently in a group so he should not get disturbed due to our presence. In a zoo we do opposite, we don't even think twice before annoying any wild animal who living a painful life in prison(zoo) .
After reaching a point where probability of sighting was maximum (It was only probability as a wildlife lover told us that he tried to sight leopard 3-4 times in previous but didn't get success . It all depends on luck if we could see him)
In a group of about 40 persons, we sat on a hillock where we could see his den on another hillock.
Waiting patiently to have a glimpse of leopard in his natural habitat
It was not easy and needed a lots of patience to keep silence for about one and half hours in a group. As we were already informed that it is only possibility to sight leopard(s) as there was a pre-information that one female is there in den with tow cubs. We sited their about one and half hours meanwhile we saw a beautiful sunset opposite side. Even after waiting so long we all were exited to get just a glimpse of this wild beauty.
About 15 minutes after sunset a Hindi idiom became true that Sabr ka fal meetha hota hai means Having patience you will get the desired result. All of sudden we saw a leopard (probably a cub) peeping out from his den.
We all were exited and started to capture this beautiful moment in our cameras and tried to feel him near with binocular. After some time he came outside for few minutes then again disappeared, probably went outside in search of prey as leopard are nocturnal. After disappearing despite becoming dark, we stayed there for few minutes in a hope that we could see him again one more time, but could't.
I dressed up camouflage to save myself from leopard :-)
It is a rare opportunity we get to sight wild animal in their natural habitat due to lake of time in our busy life and habitual of visiting zoo. I would say that zoo must be boycotted and visiting wildlife centuries should be encouraged to get real experience of wild animal's behavior.
Being a vegan we consider visiting zoo a non-vegan act and same applied for fish aquariums also, we are already running a campaign Jal pari kyon dhari (Why you captured an angel of water) to raise awareness about cruelty involved in aquariums.
Veganism not only about not using any animal products but abstaining from visiting zoo is also a part of vegan life
Happy vegan lifestyle to all of you.