Images of animals pervade Indian mythology, art, literature and religion. Attitudes towards animals can bear very definite social implication and sanctions, the killing of a spider or a snake will be regarded with reprobation, as well as the eating of meat which will generally qualify a person, one way or another.

It would be only natural to think of India as a Garden of Eden, as a place where humans and animals peacefully coexist within the same space , be it urban, rural or even within the forest. Instead the reality is that the niches in which animals are safe are shrinking everyday and with the same accelerated speed everything is changing in today's race to modernise India.

Soon many of the species that have been so important for the development of India's diverse cultures will find no place to live and will disappear forever.

The special place occupied by animals in Indian art, culture, religion and society have amazed foreign travelers to India since Greek and Roman times. Such a special relationship with animals has contributed to the propagation across the world of the most marvelous, incredible and fantastic stories about India, its people and its animal species. It is said that in India in one valley called Iordia, certain kind of snakes are born, and the most precious stones grow around their necks......'

Traditions of animal worship, originating in primitive fear and the need to propitiate those that presented danger to or served man still linger, especially in tribal areas. Such was the apotheosis of animals that they were even woven into Buddhist and Jain myths.

The abiding sacredness of animals was rooted deep in the minds of the Indian people. This was derived from the Hindu-Buddhist theory of transmigration which says the soul moves back and forth between various modes of existence viz. human, animal and superhuman. This was extended by the belief that all forms of life partake equally in the universal life force.

India is a very large country in which all types of ecosystems are present and where various religions, cultures, languages, racial groups and social organisations have developed and co-existed for centuries. Though it is obvious that the spectrum of the attitudes towards the wildlife is quite wide ranging and diverse, yet, despite such extreme differences, the respect for the life of an animal was a value absorbed throughout Indian communities since childhood.

In India, no boy or girl will wish to molest birds in their nests, nor they will feel any pride or pleasure in it, but in European countries, it is different - to discover birds' nests is one of the first modes in which a boy exercises his power and his this feeling makes him enemy of almost the whole animal creation throughout his life. It is interesting to note that how no animal species, even a tiger, was perceived as dangerous or harmful for the human being until he is provoked or very hungry.

MAN- ANIMAL CONFLICT:

The Man- Animal conflict is mainly due to the pressure of rapidly increasing population and poverty of the people which constitute the real threat to our limited natural resources. The main reasons for the conflict are:

(i) the absence of an ecological boundary outside the buffer zone with clear-cut demarcating areas exclusively reserved for National Parks or Sanctuaries and the developmental zone; and

(ii) the absence of a cease-fire like buffer zone between human habitation and the Protected areas.