This refers to the article `Is saving threatened species futile?'(Business Line, August 10). To raise such a question is to advocate not only passive reactions to environmental and wildlife concerns but to also justify our lack of responsibility to protect threatened species.

The only reason why tigers hunt cattle and livestock is because human settlements have encroached upon tiger habitat. But, in fact, villagers understand the importance of forests and how crucial it is to their own survival.

If the locals sometimes turn poachers, it is out of sheer poverty and not anger at the tigers attacking their livestock. The article's suggestion to legalise trading in animal skins is debatable and will in fact bring about large-scale and rapid extinction of species.

While the article recommends not to `waste' efforts to artificially save a species that has reached `its moment of extinction', no thought has been given to the ecological importance and value of a particular species.

We humans are nothing but just another biological species. And saving threatened species is not futile. For by understanding and preserving ecology conservation, we are, in fact, protecting ourselves.

Anand Agrawal

Hyderabad

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