On Aug. 9, I had the pleasure of attending an event at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center.
The keynote speaker for the
evening was Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, a world-renowned big cat researcher and
CEO of Panthera. Most people around the world only know of big cats
from movies, photographs, mascots and zoos. It is widely either assumed
or believed that they will forever be in existence in the wild as they
have for thousands of years. The reality is that the situation for these
animals is dire.
Across the globe, their
populations are plummeting as they lose habitat, are poached, trophy
hunted and their beautiful fur is used for “fashion.”
These big cats are keystone
predators, vital to large ecosystems and crucial to the balance of all
species they encounter. The fact that the largest of the big cats, the
tiger, has numbers as low as possibly only 3,000 in the wild throughout
the world shows the urgency to protect and conserve them.
However, if there is still even one wild big cat left in this world there will always be hope.
Please check out Panthera.org
or National Geographic’s Big Cat Initiative to learn more and see how
you can help. The world will be forever changed for the worse the day
lion or tiger roars are silenced forever in the savannas of Africa or
jungles of Asia. We, as stewards of the life on this planet, cannot let
this happen.
KRISTINA SNYDER
Concord
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