'Wired' behaviour of young men in India videoing a tiger

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This is an interesting video which shows young men in India approaching a tiger in the undergrowth, in the forest, and then they watch it cross the road and disappear. They want to get nearer to the tiger to get a video of it. The person who tweeted the video described it as "wired" behaviour. What they mean is that these young men are performing stereotypical young men behaviour in approaching a tiger because they want to capture that all-important video. It is hardwired into the brains of young men particularly to behave in this sort of macho, excitable way.


But the person who made the tweet stated that this is bad behaviour because the tiger doesn't want to attract the attention of young Indian men and if the men approach too much and if the tiger feels threatened, it may attack. And in any case, this is an example where the tiger should be left alone in their own habitat to live their lives the way they want to live it. It is the way you create harmony between humans and tigers. You leave them alone in a habitat that you provide for them.

Video maker says:

"Remember that if you see a large carnivore, it wanted you to see it. It never wanted to be chased. The tiger can maul you to death feeling threatened. Please don’t resort to this wired behaviour."
But that appears to be impossible in the modern age. There is always this intersection between tiger and people. There are always these interactions and inevitably it is the tiger that loses out. There is an argument that any interaction between humans and tigers in reserves are going to be detrimental to the tiger and if there's too much of this kind of interaction it prevents tigers from breeding which obviously upsets the conservation programme.

I think that people need to stop being fascinated with taking videos and photographs of tigers and other exotic wild animals and respect them instead. The smart phone is a bloody nuisance. Everybody takes videos and photographs of everything all the time. Nothing is sacred. It means that you have these forced interactions which would not have happened in the past.

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