CAMP Code of Conduct

Where you are

Our centres are Transit Treatment Centres, operating in formal partnership with the Maharashtra Forest Department. Every wild animal here is held under the Department's permission, for one of two reasons: it is receiving treatment, or it is being prepared to return to the wild.

There is no third reason. No animal at RESQ is here to be seen.

We say this at the outset because it explains everything that follows. The rules on this page are not house style, and they are not there to make your visit feel exclusive. They exist because the difference between an animal that goes home and an animal that never does is often a matter of how much time it spent near people, and how comfortable it became with them.

Why the rules exist

Wild animals are not frightened of humans by instinct alone. Fear is maintained by experience. A monkey that spends six weeks in a place where humans are quiet, distant and uninteresting keeps its wariness intact. A monkey that spends six weeks being photographed, spoken to and watched at close range learns that people are harmless, and that people are associated with food.

That monkey cannot be released. It will approach a village. It will be described as bold, or as a conflict animal, and what happens next is not something anybody wants.

This is called habituation, and it is the most common way a rehabilitation fails. It is caused by kindness far more often than by cruelty.

Stress works in the same direction, and faster. An animal recovering from a fracture, a snare injury, a burn or an orphaning is spending its physiological reserves on healing. Repeated proximity to an unfamiliar species, which is what you are, diverts those reserves into vigilance. Recovery slows. Some animals stop eating. Some injure themselves against enclosure walls.

You will not see any of this happening. That is precisely the problem. An animal that has frozen and gone quiet looks, to a human, like an animal that is relaxed.

This is why RESQ operates a minimal intervention and hands-off policy, and why it applies to everybody on site, without exception and without seniority.

What this means for your time here

Many of our patients are housed out of sight, deliberately. Some enclosures you will not approach. Some animals you will not be told the location of.

If you leave RESQ having seen four species and understood how a rescue is run, how a fracture is repaired, how a released animal is chosen and tracked, and why a housing society's response to a snake determines whether anybody gets bitten, then your time here has worked exactly as intended.

The animals recovering best are usually the ones you never saw.

The code

1. Quiet around animals.Speak quietly, and do not speak to the animals. Do not call, whistle, click, imitate calls, or attempt to attract an animal's attention in any way. An animal that turns to look at you has been disturbed, whether or not it appears distressed.

2. Distance. Remain where you are asked to remain. Do not lean on, touch, or place your hands or fingers through any barrier, mesh, grille or gate. Do not reach towards an animal for any reason.

3. No contact. You will not touch, hold, feed, or handle any animal at RESQ. This applies without exception, and it applies to animals that appear tame, appear friendly, or appear to want contact. Several of them do. It means nothing good.

Animal handling and clinical procedures are carried out exclusively by authorised, trained personnel. Veterinary interns assist under direct supervision, within the limits set by the attending veterinarian on the day.

4. Photography, videography and recording. Unauthorised photography, videography, recording, or posting of animals, staff, facilities or operations is strictly not permitted, anywhere on site, by anyone.

RESQ's own team photographs visits and placements, and shares those images with participants afterwards. If you would like a photograph of your group, ask, and we will take one.

Do not use flash at any time, anywhere.

5. Movement. Move as a group, at the pace set by your Community Engagement Officer. Do not enter any space, open any door, or leave the group without permission. Some doors here are the only thing between a recovering animal and an open road.

6. Instructions. If a member of staff asks you to move, stop, lower your voice, or leave an area, please do so immediately and ask afterwards. There is usually a reason, and there is not always time to explain it.

7. Biosecurity. Follow all instructions on footwear, disinfection, hand hygiene and restricted areas. Wild animals carry pathogens transmissible to humans, and humans carry pathogens transmissible to wild animals. The second direction is the one we worry about more.

8. Food. Do not bring food or open drink containers into animal areas. Do not eat within sight of animals.

9. Personal devices. Personal device use is not permitted during operational hours, except during designated breaks.

10. Confidentiality. You may learn where an animal was rescued from, where it will be released, or which village or housing society is involved in an ongoing case. You may see patient data, clinical information, and operational processes. All of it is confidential, and none of it may be photographed, published, posted, repeated or shared externally without prior written permission from RESQ.

Release sites in particular are never disclosed. A location shared casually online has, elsewhere, brought crowds, poachers, and animals killed before they could settle.

11. Representation. Participants do not represent RESQ in any official capacity, and may not issue statements, give interviews, or communicate with media or authorities on behalf of the organisation.

12. Health. Please do not come if you are unwell, and tell us in advance if you have a condition that affects your mobility or your ability to follow instructions quickly. There is no judgement in this. There is only the practical fact that we work in confined spaces around animals that can injure people.

13. Respect. Treat mentors, staff and fellow participants with respect and professionalism. Punctuality, full participation in assigned schedules, and appropriate attire, including the CAMP volunteer T-shirt during operational hours, are expected of everyone.

Additional expectations for volunteers and interns

Why you are here. You are here to work, and specifically to do work that RESQ needs done, on the days and in the areas where it needs doing. Much of it will not be the work you imagined, and occasionally it will not be interesting. You will chop food, clean, build enrichment, prepare enclosures, record data, carry things, and repeat tasks that seemed straightforward the first time and less so the eleventh.

Much of what keeps wild animals alive is unglamorous, physically demanding, and invisible in photographs. If you are looking for a placement that will feel meaningful in the moment, this may not be it. If you are looking for one that is meaningful, it is.

It is not a qualification. Time spent at RESQ does not make you competent to rescue, restrain, treat, house or rehabilitate a wild animal, and it does not authorise you to do so. Every animal you see here is held under specific permission from the Maharashtra Forest Department under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. Nothing you learn here transfers to your home, your terrace, or your neighbourhood.

We state this plainly because the pattern is real. People leave placements like this one, find an injured bird a month later, and keep it. The bird dies, usually slowly, of something preventable, in the hands of somebody who meant only good.

If you find an animal in need, call 9172511100.

Reliability. If you have committed to a day, please come. Rosters are built around you, and an absence is absorbed by somebody who was already fully occupied.

Deference to instruction. In every task, on every day, the person supervising you has the final word, and you follow it first and question it afterwards. This is not hierarchy for its own sake. Around anaesthetised animals, restrained animals, and animals in transit, a delayed instruction is a dangerous one.

Honesty. If you do not know how to do something, say so. If you have made a mistake, report it immediately, including mistakes involving animals, medication, doors, gates and locks. Nobody at RESQ has ever been penalised for reporting an error quickly. The alternative has cost animals their lives.

If this code is not followed

RESQ Charitable Trust reserves the right to modify, restrict, or terminatea participant's involvement at any time, where concerns arise around conduct, health, safety or compliance. Decisions taken by RESQ are final.

There is no warning system and no negotiation on the day. Where a placement is ended, RESQ may decline future requests from the individual, and where a group is involved, from the organisation that sent them.

We recognise how severe that reads. It is severe because the cost of the breach is not borne by you. It is borne by an animal that loses its wariness, its recovery, or its release, and by the team that spent months on it.

What we ask you to take away

RESQ does not exist to change how you feel about animals. Most people arriving here already like animals a great deal. That is why they came.

RESQ exists because liking animals is not sufficient, and is occasionally the problem. The conflicts we manage are almost never caused by people who wish wildlife harm. They are caused by people who feed a monkey, keep a fledgling, photograph a leopard from a rooftop, or crowd a rescue site to see what was found in the well.

If you leave understanding that, you will have taken away the only thing here that is genuinely ours to give.

Acknowledgement

By submitting your request or application, you confirm that you have read this Code in full, that you accept it, that you understand your visit or placement may be modified, restricted or terminated immediately if it is not followed, and that you understand the purpose of your time at RESQ to be the support of wild animals in recovery, and not your proximity to them.