New Delhi: Three weeks after Uttar Pradesh forest officials abruptly took his bird away from his house, farmer Muhammad Arif had an emotional reunion Tuesday with the Sarus crane he had found injured in his field last year and nursed back to health.
The meeting, at Allen Forest Zoo in Kanpur, lasted for “just five minutes”.
“As soon as I said ‘how are you’, he (the crane) started jumping around excitedly,” Arif told ThePrint. “His reaction was the same as earlier, when I used to come home after four to five hours,” he added.
While Arif had set the bird free after its recovery, the crane had refused to leave and continued to stay with Arif’s family for about a year.
On Tuesday, the excitement of the crane was palpable as it spotted Arif and jumped around. The videos of the meeting show the crane inside a cage within an enclosure — where it is in quarantine — while Arif stands outside.
According to zoo protocol, all new arrivals at the zoo are put under quarantine in case they are carrying diseases.
After the crane’s arrival at the zoo on 26 March, wildlife officials had said that the bird would be put under quarantine for 15 days. Arif, however, said he was told by the officials Tuesday that the quarantine had been extended by another 15 days. He was not told why, he added.
“He (the bird) was stressed that he couldn’t meet me properly. It was flapping its wings anxiously. I was worried its wings would hit the net (of the cage) and he would injure himself,” said Arif.
The meeting was emotional, Arif told ThePrint, adding that “the zoo vet had become tearful”.
Kanpur zoo’s chief veterinarian, Dr Anurag Singh, had previously told ThePrint that the crane would remember Arif even if they met five years later.
After the period of quarantine is over, the Sarus crane, which grows to a height of 156 cm and has a wingspan of about 240 cm, will be placed in an enclosure of 40 feet, zoo officials told ThePrint. The bird is currently housed in a 10-feet cage.
Arif has now been told to come back to meet the crane after 12 days.
Also read: Birds of a feather: An Amethi man rescued a sarus crane a year back; the two are now wingmen
Tale of Arif and the crane
The Sarus crane is native to northern India and can be found in the paddy fields of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Assam. There are currently between 15,000 and 20,000 of these birds in India and they are listed under Schedule 4 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act as a vulnerable species.
The cranes are found aplenty along the water bodies near Arif’s village, Mandhka, in Gauriganj tehsil of Amethi.
Arif had found this particular Sarus crane a year ago when it stumbled into his fields with a broken leg, which Arif says he healed with the same techniques he used on his hens.
As the crane continued to live with Arif and bonded with him, videos of the two went viral in February this year.
On 21 March, UP forest officials landed at Arif’s house and took the bird away to house it in Raebareli’s Samaspur Bird Sanctuary, citing its vulnerable status as the reason. District forest officer (DFO) D.N. Singh had then told ThePrint that Arif was committing a crime under the Wildlife (Protection) Act “by keeping the crane”.
Then, the following day, a local media report alleged that the sarus crane had disappeared from the Samaspur sanctuary. Accompanying these allegations were visuals from Bisaiya village showing residents feeding a Sarus crane.
Media reports, however, quoted divisional forest officer (DFO) Rupesh Srivastava as saying that the sarus was seen in the sanctuary and had not gone missing.
The bird was then moved to the Kanpur zoo, where officials told ThePrint that it was no longer fit for survival in the wild. For one thing, its diet had changed over the course of the year during which it had lived with Arif and his family and it was now accustomed to eating dal, roti and rice. In order to acclimatise it, the wildlife officials said they had put the crane on the same diet even in the zoo.
After the crane was shifted to Kanpur, Arif had visited the zoo on 28 March along with Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav but was not allowed to meet the crane. He was only permitted to see the bird on a CCTV camera.
Arif has been booked under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and was initially called for questioning by the UP forest department on 2 April. He was, however, handed another notice informing him that the official on the case would be occupied that day. He is yet to receive another date for questioning.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also read: Where does sarus crane that bonded with UP farmer belong? It’s a grey area, experts say