AS dawn approaches there is a slight drizzle over Asola sanctuary in the Aravalis. Animal activist Sonya Ghosh takes in the view. She stands on a small hillock, looking out for any of the 40 monkeys released in the wild early this month after a High Court order. She is not alone. She’s got along with her a sack full of oranges, carrots, spinach, buns and rotis. The monkeys can sniff out the food from miles.
Asola is spread over several thousands of acres and has a fair share of wildlife: blue bull, small India civet, porcupine, mongoose, jackals, flying fox and pythons.
Driving on the dirt road inside the sanctuary, Sonya is constantly on the lookout for three baby monkeys who have got separated from their mothers and are tagging along with a male monkey. Zevra, Mevalal, Liza and Nepali are a few names given to monkeys at the sanctuary who were caught by the MCD from residential colonies and kept in cages from early 2000 at Rajokri village behind Vasant Kunj. They were randomly grouped together and that often resulted in fights between them causing injury and even death.
It was then that Sonya and her group Citizens for Welfare and Protection of Animals intervened in a case filed in the High Court by an RWA against the MCD over the issue of indefinite caging of monkeys in filthy conditions.
When they were put on an enforcement committee for translocation of monkeys to the sanctuary, the organisation insisted on a few things: a medical examination of the animals, a boundary wall around the sanctuary, a primate protected park where monkeys can roam around freely and improving ways of catching the animals. For instance, enticing an entire troop of monkeys by keeping food and installing swings in walk-in room size cages which can be translocated directly to Asola. This will be less traumatic for the monkeys. “If an alpha male is picked, the rest of the troop may run riot and may bite people,” says Sonya.
Her interest in animal welfare started when as a student of Miranda House she came in touch with an Australian woman Crystal Rogers, who ran an animal shelter. That was back in the Eighties. Her involvement has only grown since.
Sonya was also on the ethics committees (committee for the purpose of control and supervision and experiment on animals). An English lecturer at the College of Vocational Studies in Delhi University, Sonya has sterilized all dogs in her block in Vasant Kunj. She feeds 20 stray dogs and has given shelter to six stray dogs and even an injured crow in her house.
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