I have many images like this, different times, different places, different countries. Not for one minute am I pointing the finger at Nepal, this is a global issue, we are all responsible.
Of late I've been talking about the ruthless truth. When one is spending a lot of time seeing the world through an animal being rewilded, in this case, Asa, the Leopard of Hope, a certain type of perspective comes in. Conservationists, real ones, bust their gut because they care, because they are worried. Someone jokingly said to me a while back that I liked wildlife more than people... hey c'mon, humans are in my top 30 species...oh ok then... top 50. But all joking aside I think true conservationists are in fact the truest humanitarians because it's about the protection of our home.
There is hope. In a few days I'll be back in Bardia where tiger numbers are on the rise (a report on this soon), it is a place where value added protection is worth every effort. Of course, for a young leopard like Asa it cannot be about safety, the life of a leopard is a tough one anyway but it is about fulfilling roles in ecosystem the way nature intended. Unfortunately few people ask me about this stuff, the questions are more like "what does his fur feel like?"... hmmm...
I could easily have played this whole thing another way... posted "cute" photos of Asa, sold enough images to easily fund the project. I could talk about how his fur feels.
Not my style sorry... there's plenty of ruthless truth to come. Yes, there is hope but it's time some people woke up...
