More than 2,500 photographs by award winning photographers are on display at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) here on Tuesday. The exhibition on wildlife and nature is organised by Osai, an environment organisation, for the 13th consecutive year.
The exhibition was jointly organised by the Tamil Nadu Forest Department, Rotary Club of Coimbatore Metropolis, and the NSS unit of TNAU as part of the Wildlife Week celebration.
Osai president K. Kalidasan said that the aim of the exhibition was to inculcate the idea of conserving nature and wildlife, especially among the younger generation.
Most of the photographs depict the rich flora and fauna of the Western Ghats. “The exhibition is more like a document on the forests in this region,” he said.
Students who visited the venue said that we tend to assume that animals like the lion, zebra, and giraffe (that we see in the zoos here) are the wild animals of this region.
“But the exhibition helped us realise that they are not the native animals of Western Ghats,” said Sharanya, a student.
Another student said that they realised that are many animals small and big in this region that they were seeing for the first time through the exhibition. The exhibition had separate galleries with a good collection of pictures on the landscape of Western Ghats, birds, mammals, butterflies, insects, and reptiles.
Among galleries that stole the limelight was the one on conflicts in which one could see animals in action, killing their prey, prey trying to defend itself, fights among the species, and mating, clicked by experts with great difficulty.
The exhibition will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. till October 9. A few documentaries too will be screened for the visitors every day. Competitions on quiz, elocution, and skit will be organised on Thursday and Friday.
