‘If we keep on hunting, what will we leave to the future?’
Vishü Rita Krocha
Kohima | June 26
“How can you run a breeding centre without an incubator?” This was a question that rang in Kenei Kuotsu’s mind - a staunch conservationist - when he recently visited the Blyth’s Tragopan Conservation and Breeding Centre at Kohima.
“The state bird of Nagaland - the Blyth’s Tragopan is an endangered species,” he stated with deep concern as he delved deeper into its wellbeing and reflected on his meeting with Keneikrul, the official in charge of the Breeding Centre, with whom he discussed the various challenges faced by the centre.
The Breeding Centre lacks an incubator, which Kuotsu identified has been an impediment to the growth of the centre. SpeakGuru Foundation founded by Kuotsu is contributing an incubator to the centre as one of the first steps to aid the breeding programme. The Foundation is also providing a power generator.
SpeakGuru Foundation was started with the aim to help in the conservation of flora and fauna endemic to Nagaland, besides its two other primary goals of helping children with cancer, and needy students/schools.
“They don’t have an incubator. What the centre is doing is trying to let them hatch naturally which is very challenging,” he said. “Tragopans cannot incubate because they are in an artificial environment. They are very skittish and at the slightest disturbance, they will run away. There are a lot of factors that can affect the hatching of the eggs. Therefore an incubator will really help.”
With a Master’s Degree in Geology from Pune University, Kuotsu currently works for a Canadian Company - Manulife as a senior Manager in Singapore.
As a young boy, he admitted to having hunted with catapults but it passed with age. According to him, a realisation to conserve wildlife and start conservation programmes dawned on him when he started penning the Speak Guru column. “If we keep on hunting, what are we going to leave for our future generations?”
As his passion for conservation issues grew, he started doing his own research and added that “moving to Singapore really helped because people there really love animals.”
Kenei Kuotsu also spends his weekends as a docent at the Singapore Zoo interacting with visitors. While in Singapore, he once walked a distance of 50km with friends, colleagues and well wishers pledging to contribute to the cause of the SpeakGuru Foundation. That ‘walk’ helped raise about $ 2000.
On June 24, he along with members and patrons of the Foundation undertook a similar expedition to the Dzükou Valley with conservation as the underlying message. His colleagues and friends have pledged Rs. 20,000 to the cause. To take the conservation programme forward in Nagaland, the Foundation is also seeking to have students from Singapore and around the world take up research assignments on the Blyth’s Tragopan attached to the Breeding Centre.
He said, “The reason why I want this is because once they come and do the research, it will help in their course work back in their own country, and it will also help us to gather more resources and those resources will help us in the future to know more about our Blyth’s Tragopan.”
While he is here, he plans to engage with students on the importance of the Breeding Centre and conversation as a whole.
“We need to start from ground zero. I will tell them about the bird but the underlying message would be conservation. If they learn now, they will grow up with the message imprinted in their minds; that conservation is important and we should preserve and conserve our plants and animals.”
