The Wildlife Protector

To the CEO of the Global Tribune,

The last week has been wild.

In just one week, I have gone from an enterprising 23-year-old idealist to a wanted felon in 4 different countries.

I am too pretty to go to prison.

But to bring you up to speed with how I ended up in this sorry state, we need to start at the beginning. And if you can find it in your heart to stay with me till the end, please listen closely and understand where I come from. You are my only hope, and if you do not fight for my freedom, you will be the last person I write to again in earnest plea.

So like all well-meaning entrepreneurs, I have always wanted to solve realistic problems. Global warming, poverty, starvation, and war; are noble pursuits of those foolish enough to think they are more than a drop in an ocean, and who probably think their little voices can be heard.

I learned a painful lesson when I was only a wee boy. I learned that we could not do anything without help. A stick will always be cracked in two pieces by itself, and only presents a true challenge when other sticks are dumb enough to join it and resist change together. Even a single iron rod can be bent under enough pressure. But 8 intertwined iron rods, soldered together, make a foundation and a foundation carries the weight of larger structures.

Do you see my point? We cannot solve big issues unless we have enough triggered activists to fling at the problem. So I dreamt small. I chose an issue that can be catered to in isolation. I chose to be the voice of change, the paragon of virtue, or the poster boy of wildlife protection.

For context, I was born to a humble farmer and housewife in the sprawling and dangerous forests of Peru, so you can understand that I am no stranger to the danger of living amongst predators or prey. Contrary to public opinion, most top predators in the jungles of unexplored Peru do not pose a real threat to humans. It’s the apex predators that had villages in the valleys and hills fencing their entrances with barbed wire, warding omens and scarecrows.

As a young boy, I was drawn to the dangerous and exciting thrill of living in close quarters to Peru’s host of wild psychopaths we call wildlife. We had great white sharks, the attack floaties of the seas.

The small but venomous poison dart frog, is known for its infamous blep tongue attacks that can kill 10 adult men or 20 insecure children with its judgemental I-think-I-am-better-than-you death stare.

We had the Piranhas; the choppy monchies of the sea that could give the tooth fairy more teeth in one day than an ambitious child trying to take out all their teeth and scam the system.

We have the Brazilian wandering spider known for its terrible bite that can give an adult male a heart attack and even respiratory failure, as well as for its wanderlust brought about by its existential need to leave the nest and find meaning outside its home.

We have the Black Caiman, that is what happened when God was making crocodiles and His printer ran out of ink. But don’t mistake these snappy-crappy, overgrown lizards for friends. They have a bite force that can crush bones and flesh within seconds as well as your dreams and ambitions, which can be a significant problem in the long run.

We have bullet ants whose sting has been compared to a hot, sharp knife being pierced into your flesh, which has delivered the highest sting on the pain index after the sting of never being good enough for your parents, JUST BECAUSE YOU WANTED SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM THE NORM. IT’S BAD ENOUGH WE HAVE ROBO-WORKERS BEING CHURNED BY SCHOOLS, DEVOID OF EVEN THE SLIGHTEST HINT OF ORIGINALITY; BUT TO NOT HAVE YOUR GENIUS RECOGNISED AND ENCOURAGED; WELL, IT IS A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH, second only to the sting of these little termites.

These snakes with a pretty severe eating disorder are called green anacondas, which can grow up to 30 feet long and up to 600 pounds. These snakes are apparently masters of camouflage, which is a fact that I can hardly believe as these big-boned slither ropes are too thicc to hide anywhere, except underwater. Coincidentally, those are the areas where they are known to immerse themselves and hide.

Do you get my point? We also have the Amazonian giant centipede (Leggy-sneks), electric eels (Toasters-in-water), armed spiders (stick-em-up-crawlies that abandoned webs for Glocks), Jaguars (not the cars but also go vroom-vroom), cougars and pumas (not the shoes). I am no stranger to death, but unfortunately, my parents are well acquainted with it.

Of all the ways to become an orphan, I ended up losing my parents to the bite of the rather anti-climactic mosquito carrying the Zika virus.

Do not pity me, what did not kill me made me stronger.

I was taken in by an older missionary couple from India who were visiting Peru and before you knew it, I was renamed, packed up and brought all the way to the urban jungle folks call Bangalore.

17 years later, I have completed college, finished my master's in wildlife conservation and botany, and have written leading papers on the dangerous flora and fauna of Peru. All this and I felt so empty, until the day that I walked into this church called Ashraya. Now although my faith and personal walk are quite personal to me and is not a topic of discussion in this letter, I will mention that I was deeply inspired by a girl I met there.

Actually, strike that, the girl herself was of lesser interest to me, but her bag held something else. A little wooden elephant with many carved holes in the side of it. Probably a cute little keepsake of India’s thriving wildlife ecosystem to her, but to me, the very thing my entire life had led up to.

You see, seeing the holes in the elephant made me realise something; poaching is a very real threat to wildlife protection. To me, each hole represented a shot from individual hunters, teasing the group effort it takes to make a species extinct. Remember the sticks I told you about earlier?

Well, I was inspired. This was one of those rare problems I envisaged one stick to be able to solve. Smiling at her with deep joy, I shook her hand as she looked at me, seeming quite confused and awkward at the attention drawn to her; and I proceeded to walk out of that church, mid-sermon, with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning.

4 years later, I write to you from the undisclosed location where I reside today, deeply hurt at how small-minded the media and public can be. I WAS A DREAMER. I HAD VISION. THE RAMIFICATIONS OF MY ACTIONS COULD HAVE LASTED FOR CENTURIES, AS HUMANS AND WHAT WAS LEFT OF WILDLIFE RESIDED TOGETHER IN HARMONY.

In 4 years, I started up an organisation back home, that had more than 2 million petitioners that earned the sanction of the Peruvian Government to levy hard punitive laws against poachers, resulting in imprisonment up to 14 years depending on the rarity and value of the animal killed.

Within the first 6 months, several poachers and independent bounty hunters surrendered their hunting rifles to our widespread collection offices and for a brief period, the black market became the only market for poaching which was far harder to crack down on.

And then, history began to change as one hero, aspired to do the right thing for the animal kind and humankind.

First, the popular zoo Parque de las Leyendas in Lima received an ‘anonymous’ donation of a crate of rare and rather dead predators for study, including but not restricted to; one icebox of 5 piranhas, 4 no-longer-judgemental poison dart frogs, 2 green anacondas (that the ‘anonymous’ hero almost died trying to find underwater, as he wrestled with that thicc boy) and a Black Caiman without its trademark bad attitude.

And that was only the beginning.

Within the next year, the total count of human deaths at the hands of animals came down from 250 per year to 3. And the total predator count in key areas coincidentally dropped to 0. Our hero earned the title ’The Wildlife Assassin’, which was grossly unfair to them because they were trying to protect both humans and animals from animals. ‘The Wildlife Protector’ seemed far more apt, but that’s just my opinion about this amazing person.

And Peru was only our hero’s first hunting ground.

Reports of several missing and soon discovered dead wildlife, surfaced from the ground of the Amazon rainforest in South America, the Aokigahara Forest in Japan, the Congo, Dering Woods in England, the Hoia Forest in Romania, Sambisa Forest in Nigeria and many more. Leading zoologists now had access to the remains of several nearly endangered species that were now safe to study and understand more of. Forest rangers around the world could now walk easier at night knowing that all the predators that they would guard civilisation from are 6 feet under the ground rather than 6 feet over the fence. Children can now play in rainforests fearing only the depressing rain and poison mushrooms.

This hero stepped on the tails, necks and heads of dangerous animals, so you do not have to. He protected several species from large-scale poaching by being the only danger to them. He gave you, the media, one public enemy whom you could all hate, just so you can sleep easier at night knowing that your children are better off in the world with him in it. He ended animal cruelty by being the only one cruel to animals, SO YOUR CONSCIENCES COULD REST WITH YOUR ANIMAL LEATHER BAGS AND CARCASS CARPETS. He was the hand of action that symbolised every unspoken violent desire you felt when a mosquito buzzed over your head at night, only to flee like a coward when you tried to catch it. He took a crap on the very animals that took pleasure in crapping on you, your cars, your homes and your crying children.

But the media wanted its scapegoat because as long as change offers our generation a chance to develop, there will always be men and women with pitchforks to slow them down.

And in case you have not figured it out yet, I am the Wildlife Protector. And I will never stop.

I too, am amongst the ranks of Michael Servetus, Galileo, Henry Oldenburg and so on, who were punished for the crime of being change-makers. And I write to you asking you which side of history you would like to be on; those that resisted change or those brave enough to defend it even to death?

You, the eminent CEO, of a world-renowned paper and magazine publication, known for its honest journalism, its knack for seeking the truth, its reputation for being incorruptible, and for its love for defending those who cannot defend themselves; I implore you to consider my letter and if you are interested in taking a remote interview, I would be happy to oblige you and your signal of interest in entertaining my request will be a taking a picture of an upside-down elephant and posting it on your Twitter page with no context. And I will be in touch.

If you wish to hold back change by 2 decades, go ahead and tear this letter up.

Hopeful regards,

The Wildlife Protector.