AI image of wildlife damage surfaces as students protest India forest clearing

"This picture has broken my heart. This is my Alma mater HCU (University of Hyderabad) where deforestation is going on. Innocent animals are running here & there," reads the caption to the image shared on Facebook on April 3, 2025.

It shows deer and birds running away as clearing equipment tears down trees in a forested area.

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Screenshot of the false post taken April 7, 2025

The image also surfaced on X and Instagram following reports the government began clearing parts of the 400-acre Kancha Gachibowli -- a forested land which borders the University of Hyderabad -- to set up IT parks (archived link).

In response, students from the university staged an indefinite protest and boycott of classes from April 2, with at least 50 detained by police but later released, according to the India Today website (archived link).

The Supreme Court issued a stay order on the tree-felling on April 3 with a hearing set later in the month, NDTV reported (archived link).

'I used ChatGPT'

An analysis of the image found irregularities in the alignment of a bird's wing, two deer appearing to have a single body and unnatural positioning of another deer's legs.

Visual errors are an indication that an image is not genuine but digitally created using a generative AI tool, AFP previously reported. 

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Screenshot highlighting the two deer with merged bodies (left), the bird with odd wings (centre) and another deer with strange legs (right)

A reverse image search followed by a keyword search on Google found a video with similar visuals shared on Instagram on April 4 (archived link).

"This video is completely AI generated and it's not real," reads part of its caption.

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Screenshot comparison of the image falsely shared as genuine (left) and the video from Instagram

AFP reached out to the owner of the account, who identified himself as Jadhesh Vadakkumpuram Prakash. He said he also created the circulating image. 

"I created the image using the current AI technology and shared it on my Instagram story but deleted it soon," he told AFP.

"As a creator I thought of what I can do. I started research to gather information on the HCU issue," Prakash went on to say.

"Then finally came the position of creating a video with AI. I used ChatGPT for the storyboard, image generation and finally made this animated image in another AI tool."

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