Amazon Prime Video’s Poacher hopes to offer nuance to the human-animal conflict in Kerala

Director Richie Mehta with executive producer Alia Bhatt in London for the screening of their Amazon Prime web-series Poacher, starring Nimisha Sajayan, Roshan Matthew and Dibyendu Bhattacharya. (Photo via X)

Amazon Prime Video’s much anticipated series Poacher, releases on February 23. A gritty exploration of the menace of poaching, this series directed by Emmy Award winning director Richie Mehta (Delhi Crime) follows a couple of Forest Services Officers who track and capture notorious poachers operating out of Kerala’s forests. Coincidentally, this series comes at a time when Kerala’s Wayanad region has been rocked by violent protests against increasing fatalities from elephant attacks.

Roshan Mathew and Nimisha Sajayan in Poacher.

Rahul Gandhi recently cut short his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, to fly into Wayanad, where he met the families of those who died in the recent elephant attacks. Human-animal conflict is a persistent problem in the region, where migratory trends ensure that herds of elephants invariably come in contact with human life. Though efforts have been ongoing for decades, with government agencies, NGOs and a variety of other independent organisations working to provide safe corridors for elephants to prevent conflict, there have been deaths on both sides of the divide.

Only last December, the Environment Ministry disclosed that close to 3,000 people had died across the country by coming in contact with tuskers. Ironically, this human-animal conflict hasn’t dissuaded notorious poaching mafias from killing elephants as part of the illegal ivory trade. Director Richie Mehta’s series, which has been co-produced by Alia Bhatt, will follow the fictional chase to nab some of the most prominent players of this wildly lucrative business.

The show represents the other side of the story, where elephants, when they are not seen as threatening giants, are treated much like many endangered species, as victims. Only last year, Kartiki Gonsalves’ Oscar-winning The Elephant Whisperers highlighted the tender bond indigenous people share with these wild beasts and the forests they roam. To an increasingly volatile dynamic across species, Mehta’s show will look to offer some welcome perspective.