Chennai Alumni Use Cute Vulture Art to Save Species

School notebooks in Chennai are getting a makeover that could help save an endangered species. Alumni from The Hindu Higher Secondary School are distributing labels covered in cute vulture caricatures to get kids excited about conservation.

Raghunath Krishna, a brand strategist and the creative force behind the initiative, knows that facts alone won't capture young minds. His strategy is simple: make vultures adorable first, teach the science later.

The caricatures transform these often misunderstood birds from scary scavengers into creatures that look huggable and friendly. Every time a student opens their notebook, they see these reimagined vultures staring back at them.

The alumni group, calling themselves the Big Street Boys after their school's location in Triplicane, funded the entire project themselves. On June 18, they distributed labels to students at Olcott Memorial School in Besant Nagar, where Raghunath explained why vultures play an irreplaceable role in nature.

Vultures face serious threats from chemical toxins that enter their bodies when they eat contaminated carrion. Their populations have dropped dramatically, creating gaps in the ecosystem that no other creature can fill.

The Ripple Effect

This isn't Raghunath's first conservation campaign. He's spent years working with forest communities across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, teaching children about protecting wildlife.

His previous projects include tiger reserve awareness campaigns and Elephany, an art initiative celebrating elephants. One fact he loves sharing: a single elephant plants around 1.8 million trees during its lifetime by spreading seeds through its dung.

The Big Street Boys hope to expand the vulture label program to more schools, including their own alma mater. Whether that happens depends on getting support beyond their graduating class.

Raghunath teaches his conservation caricature techniques on YouTube through Pencils Rock Academy. His philosophy is clear: no design should bore the viewer, and every image should speak directly to its audience.

What started as a batch reunion project is now putting endangered vultures in front of hundreds of students daily, one cheerful notebook label at a time.