I do not catch many wildlife documentaries or wildlife shows these days. I know the stories, the figures, the facts. Much of the weekly shows you do happen to catch on cable seems over-sensationalized to draw the public’s attention with little take away messaging.
Somehow I have managed to watch two this past month featuring the worlds most iconic predators. Species we think of as at the top of the food chain. Species which are helpless against illegal poaching, legal trophy hunting, exotic pet trade, habitat loss, and human-wildlife conflict. The Tiger and the Lion are disappearing right in front of you while you watch someone wrestle an alligator in the “name of science” on your television.
The Last Lions will be in theaters here in Houston beginning March 18th at the Edwards Greenway Plaza and if you care about wildlife, you will try and catch it during its short run. The filmmakers immerse you in the Okavanga Delta of Botswana where a mother lion fights for her cubs and her own survival due to a pride pushed into her territory by human encroachment.
Broken Tail: A Tiger’s Last Journey was on our local PBS station last week. A different type of filming than The Last Lions, but it was both a fascinating and relevant glimpse of the Tiger in India. The filmmakers do not know why this one Tiger, “Broken Tail”, left the safety of Ranthambore National Park, but they do tell of his end (not shown so no need to worry about vivid imagery). The story and the images of the filmmakers capturing footage of these tigers is sobering and wonderfully done.
Lions still maintain some large populations but you should reflect on the fact that wild numbers have gone from nearly 500,000 individuals to 20,000 individuals in just 50 years. The US still allows the import of over 500 trophy lions per year to come out of Africa. Even the best management plan cannot sustain these numbers coupled with loss of habitat and lions poisoned or shot in human-wildlife conflicts with native people. Add to this the disappearance of the Tiger, and Lions are now being poached and sent to Asian markets for medicinal purposes.
Tigers: 5 separate and distinct subspecies equal only 3,500 individuals in the wild. The last stronghold of the tiger is in India with maybe 80% of the remaining populations. Sumatran Tigers, Amur Tigers (Russia), Malaysian Tigers, Indochinese Tigers – maybe 500 each and all under poaching pressures.
There is no reason to miss The Last Lions when it is in Houston. National Geographic is using this film as a vehicle to raise funds for Big Cat conservation and many zoos around the country support cat conservation in the field in both Africa and Asia. And check your PBS listings for the next viewing of Broken Tail: A Tiger’s Last Journey. There is always hope to save species which are beginning to slip away, if we work hard enough to protect them and put enough resources in the right places.
Sorry, did I distract you from watching some guy named Bear finding the remains of a seal carcass and fashioning a wetsuit from its blubbery hide? Good thing he happened to be surviving alone somewhere with a cameraman to catch that for us.
