Audacity

This image was taken on 18th may 2012, 15 km from  adoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), Chandrapur, Maharashtra, India. The poachers carried its head and paws and left the remaining body in little pieces.
    On the 23 rd of May the Government of Maharashtra issued 'shoot-at-sight' orders to the forest guards if they saw any poacher hunting or laying traps in tiger reserves. And more importantly, the Forest guards will not be persecuted.
You question the morality of the decision? The life of a man over the tiger.
Or you froth in anger, wondering what took them so long to enforce the shoot at sight orders?
Its a difficult question, a man's life over a tigers. Especially for someone who lives in civilized society.
Civilized.
What a word.
If ever they find one word that has destroyed this planets endless diversity and cultural wealth , it would be this one.
Civilized.
The word that inspired the Europeans rape and plunder the planet and its cultural and natural diversity for centuries.
Civilized.
You think I oversimplify it too much. Maybe I do. However, more destruction has been cause to the people and this planet in the name of progress and civilization that any other cause. Progress towards capitalism. Progress towards science. Progress towards Religion . Progress. Civilization. Hah.
Sorry I digress. Coming back to the tigers . Its ridiculously clear that the tiger over the years has come to symbolize something. In an ever industrializing society , we need such symbols which connect us to the larger natural world. To save the tiger, is therefore nor just saving the majestic carnivore that occupied the top of the food chain probably till the Chinese discovered  the boom powder.
Its saving that symbol which we have glorified for years.
For that failure will prick our majestic egos till time immemorial. 
and that we simply cannot have.
I only hope that this will be enough to protect little pieces of this planet.
little pieces like tigers.