Sin & retribution, a concept as old as the greeks themselves. So how many dogs' lives does it take to make up for the death of 2 humans: 20? 50? a 1000?!

Reports say over 200 dogs in Bangalore have been 'culled' (scientific term meant to explain the gross tilt that we've created in the ecological balance, that we then set about 'correcting' by systmatically exterminating animal polulations).

Today scores of pariahs in bangalore are paying for the deeds of a few feral cousins, victims of the un-sanitary conditions we created in the first place.

And thats one part of the picture .. snakes in multi-storey buildings, the monkey 'menace' in Shastri Bhavan, two leopards brutally beaten up for straying into human habitation.

I wont go into specifics of culling, over-population, the depleting forest cover, or the latest canine witch hunt..that's better argued by conservationists and animal activists.

I have a more elementary question.

Are we inherently racially prejudiced? While we're making a show of treading the line of equality among men, we've not only claimed a position of superiority over other species, we've even dismissed their basic right to their space under the sun.

Do we really believe that we own the planet and owe nothing at all to everything else living on it except what we accord them in the form of charity? (Read; animal rights campaigns).

How dare the wild tread into our space when we've accorded them a forest close-by? Nevermind that that 'protected' land is a fraction of the original space they owned or currently require. Nevermind that our dreadful ways are driving some them into our towns or have caused an over-population of others.

Author & naturalist, Gerald Durrell once called them 'the voiceless voteless lot'...maybe that's why its easy to blame (even punish) them for walking into our homes and on our roads and sit in judgment on their 'unnatural' behavior (often deviations borne off human design).

The zoo in Cologne perhaps got it right when it set a large mirror as one of its exhibits--- with a placard reading "the most dangerous animal on earth".

And whats a fitting retribution for that? The doomsday theorists may have an answer.