It's got to the pointy end now hasn't it. Recent reports about the alarming drop in African lion numbers, the extinction of the Eastern puma as issues along with the link I just posted on Facebook regarding increased trade in clouded leopards (link from @WildTigerNews Twitter feed) are examples.
About 3am a couple of mornings ago my phone shook with a notification. I'm a very light sleeper. I remember once at Leopard Camp I was asleep in the main enclosure when I heard a twig snap. In the moonlight I saw Asa leap out of a tree and head towards the noise. I didn't see him for a couple of days. I tried to track him but the terrain was just too steep, the sort of stuff only a leopard could deal with when hunting prey. I remember thinking "you awesome animal, you precious, precious awesome leopard"...
But I digress, well, slightly. The phone notification was simply someone putting a favourite tag on an image of a lion I took many years ago and posted on a photo sharing site. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't. I wondered what the person saw in the photo, I wondered if they understood what was going on, if they really cared.
I've been wondering lately how many people really do care. Big cat conservation needs steady, smart people capable of keeping their emotions in check in a confronting environment. But it also needs massive support from people who do care about the situation, people who really understand the situation. The amount of money some countries spend on weaponry alone on top of their individual living styles, just a small chunk of it could alleviate many of the poverty issues that affect habitat destruction. I find it hard to reconcile this. Even this weekend coming up the Rugby World Cup final will soak up billions. As a New Zealander of course I'd love to see us win but would I swap that for the life of a single tiger, a single leopard, lion, clouded leopard, any of them? No I wouldn't, not for second. Who wins that game matters not compared to a situation where we have allowed these brilliant sentient beings, these magnificent ecosystem engineers, these superb wild cats to now be in such a perilous situation.
I probably wont even know the score until well after the game has finished. We are translocating the two young leopard cubs in the Rewilding Program. They will be handled with the utmost care. They are precious. The people involved will be level headed, we will all learn, we will do our best, it's a high stakes game... but not really a game, it's much more vital than that.
We need people to understand that. And support it...
This post is at Facebook should you wish to comment.
