10 #LEOPARD DEATHS, WHAT IF THEY HAD BEEN RHINO, ELEPHANT OR TIGER? ... Well I'm sure the whole world would be jumping up and down, as usual. But as usual again, this will be a point zero something on the richter scale.
Re posts yesterday (at my Facebook page, Living with Leopards and Twitter), 9 leopard skins seized in Uttarakhand and 1 in Baitaidi within 24 hours. It will be unlikely we'll know where they all came from but the point is EVERY ONE IS PRECIOUS, it doesn't matter what the regional or overall population is, EVERY DEATH AFFECTS THE ECOSYSTEM. I got a fair bit of correspondence and it frightens me no one touches on these points. I think the recent documentaries and stories about the Mumbai, Kathmandu and other urban leopards has given some people a false sense of security about leopard populations, that just shows how disconnected people have become when understanding the scientific reality about how predators function in ecology.
The blog I publish soon will probably be the last I say about it for a while because to be honest, I'm sick of talking about it, I've got a hell of a lot of work to do anyway. But it will hit hard. There is nothing good about this situation and support is thin on the ground, I'm sorry people, but that is about cold hard cash, we already have damn good people (some of the toughest people on the planet), it's resources we lack and likes etc on Facebook don't pay the bills.
The image is another one of The Boss (see post a few back), he's precious, he's a great cat, he's an ecosystem engineer. He's not a rhino, elephant or tiger though and the years have taught me, that if he wanted real protection, that was his biggest mistake. Well fuck that, we'll fight for these cats, support or no support...
