New Delhi: Wildlife conservationists across India are shaken by the untimely death of 28-year-old Radheshyam Bishnoi, an anti-poaching campaigner and champion of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB).
Boshnoi died in a car accident near Jaisalmer on 24 May. He was on his way to stop an incident of deer poaching in Lathi district, Rajasthan, when the car carrying him, two other conservationists, and a forest guard collided with a truck on the national highway.
“The entire city of Jaisalmer has been inconsolable since his death. I feel like I’ve lost my own brother,” said Sumer Singh, a fellow conservationist and friend of Bishnoi’s. “It is a loss we won’t recover from anytime soon.”
Bishnoi hailed from Dholia village in Pokhran district of Rajasthan, which is known for its Great Indian Bustard population. He was passionate about protecting animals right from childhood. In an interview with the Sanctuary Nature Foundation in 2021, he said nature conservation was also his ‘religion’ since he belonged to the Bishnoi community.
The young conservationist had a penchant for bringing back injured animals and birds home to heal, and Singh recounted how he wanted to gain professional knowledge in it. He moved to Jaipur in 2016 for a three-month long first aid course at Machia Biological Park Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre. It was here that Bishnoi first encountered the GIB.
“When he found out the critically endangered nature of GIBs, and how they were indigenous to his home in Pokhran, he instantly decided to work on it,” said Sumit Dookia, wildlife biologist at the Ecology, Rural Development & Sustainability (ERDS) Foundation, which Radheshyam was also associated with.
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‘First call would go to him’
A striking personality, a passionate talker, and a fast learner—that’s how his friends and colleagues describe Radheshyam. He learnt by experience the different haunts of the GIB, and spent his days driving around talking to local villagers in Rajasthan about the importance of conserving the Bustard, or Godawan as it is known in those regions.
“Even though he was a young lad, most elders of the village would listen to him. He just had that personality. Soon, anytime people recognised GIBs in distress, the first call would go to him,” said Singh. “And then he would call me.”
Singh, who knew Bishnoi since he was 15, is in shock at having lost his closest confidante. A wildlife protector himself, he recalled spending countless days with Bishnoi driving around the state rescuing everything from chinkaras to camels to vultures and GIBs.
After the death of Bishnoi and the two other wildlife conservationists in the car, Shyamlal Bishnoi and Kanwaraj Singh, he now feels quite alone in the battle for GIB protection in Rajasthan.
“I know now that there’s no certainty in a human’s life, but if there’s one thing I know about my friend it is that he would have wanted me to take forward the cause of GIB conservation,” said Singh. “Not only will I dedicate my life to it, but I’ll ensure no one in Pokhran and the country forgets Radheshyam’s contributions too.”
Bishnoi’s entire life revolved around wildlife conservation, to the extent that he never even took up a full-time job in case it hampered his efforts. He was knowledgeable about the land and the people, not to mention the protocols to be followed to ensure the safety of the critically endangered beings.
Apart from patrolling the main habitat of the GIB—the Desert National Park in Jaisalmer—himself, he would also travel from village to village talking to people about the threats of poaching, stray dogs, and power transmission lines. His expertise, gained from experience, was invaluable to all including researchers at the Wildlife Institute of India who are running the GIB Conservation Centre in Sam, Jaisalmer. “He got numerous offers from organisations to work for them but he remained independent. He would help everyone, from an NGO to the forest department. He was an institution in himself,” said Dookia.
Bishnoi led an entire team of volunteers to patrol and monitor the GIB habitat under the ERDS Foundation’s GIB Mitra program. In 2021, he was also awarded the Young Naturalist Award by the Sanctuary Nature Foundation for his work in wildlife conservation.
But his real contribution to society can be summed up in one simple act that happened a few weeks ago during the India-Pakistan conflict. Singh recalled, “When Jaisalmer was under a blackout and we were all scared, Bishnoi would go to the DNP every night in his truck, and refill water in the water holes he had dug for the wild animals in the summer.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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