The plummeting number of big 
cats in the world has got conservationists very worried. Since the 1960s, Africa’s big cat population has drastically declined by 90%, and future prospects are not looking positive. Some estimates suggest that we can expect mass extinctions in the next 10 to 15 years. There are numerous causes for this catastrophe, including cat being hunted for bushmeat, poisoned by farmers wanting to protect herds of cattle, safari hunts, and trophy shooting, which is still legal in a number of African countries.
“There were 450,000 lions when we were born and now there are only 20,000 worldwide,” says legendary big cat conservationist Dereck Joubert. “Leopards have declined from 700,000 to 50,000, cheetahs from 45,000 to 12,000 and tigers are down from 50,000 to just 3,000,” adds Joubert’s wife, Beverly. These are shocking figures to say the least. Beverly and Dereck Joubert are world-renowned filmmakers who have studied big cats for almost thirty ears and are part of National Geographic’s Explorers in Residence.
The extinction of big cats is not only going to affect the harmony of wild life but humans as well. Jackals and hyenas will end up knocking out mid-level prey species, and humans will end up with big prey species that will drastically grow in numbers and wipe out everything below them. Dereck believes that “if we were systematically trying to kill off the world’s top predators, we couldn’t do a better job of helping the ecosystem towards destruction.”
Another prominent conservationist, Alan Rabinowitz, said in an interview with Yale Environment 360 that the key to reviving wildcat numbers is in the hands of conservation groups. Conservation groups must carefully study existing populations and work with governments to crack down on illegal hunting and other threats, as well as develop scientifically valid recovery programs. “The world,” he says, “will absolutely be a much, much poorer — and, I believe, unhealthier — place with the loss of any of the world’s great cats.”
The tiger is in the worst shape of all the big cats, with only 2,500 – 3,000 left in the wild. The main cause for this low number is the killing of tiger food along with the use of tiger bones and other parts for Asian traditional medicine. As the Chinese economy has boomed more people can afford expensive remedies and so there has been a high rise in the demand for tigers. For poor locals in places like Myanmar or India, killing a tiger can buy them a marketplace in a local village or give their daughter a dowry. It is up to the international conservation communities to make a change in people’s destructive habits present in such places.
Don’t miss out on Beverly and Dereck Joubert’s latest film The Last Lions, airing between 11 and 17 December 2011 as part of National Geographic’s Big Cat Week (which will be repeated). Big Cat Week is part of National Geographic’s Big Cat Initiative to save these magnificent creatures and stave off their fatal extinction.
(By Ivelina Dineva)
(Image by yenhoon, via stock.xchng)