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Hunters kill one of last Amur Leopards
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by babblingdweeb | April 24, 2007 at 06:37 am
1535 views | 15 Recommendations | 2 comments
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In a sad story for the environment, another species approaches extinction. One leopard of the worlds most endangered cat family was shot and killed by a hunter in Russia.
A hunter shot the leopard through the tail bone. It tumbled over and was then beaten over the head with a heavy object, WWF said.
“The recent census confirmed once again that the Amur leopard survives on very shaky ground,” said Pavel Fomenko, biodiversity conservation program coordinator at the Far-Eastern branch of WWF in Russia.
Fomenko said encroaching civilization, new roads, poaching, exploitation of forests, and climate change had contributed to the leopards’ plight.
“From my perspective, the leopards’ exact number is not the big question.” Fomenko said, “What is really important is that the predator is on the brink of extinction. And still a unified protected area with national park status has not been established, which is the most important thing for the leopards’ survival.”
Thankfully someone tipped the WWF off...
A local wildlife watchdog received an anonymous tip-off that a leopard had been killed. State wildlife officers found the dead animal after a day of searching. The leopard died on either April 15 or April 16, WWF said.
While I don't expect the U.S. nor the WWF to police the world's hunters, it's sad to think that globally we have a disregard to the environment and its inhabitants. Developed countries use the majority of resources and supply the majority of the worlds trash; while undeveloped countries suffer to "go without". Rather than "civilized" nations learning from the "uncivilized" that hunt for food, not for pleasure -we primarily take focus on other issues, while environmentalism and overall environment awareness takes a back seat.
Does anyone miss the dodo bird? Probably just some scientists; but that doesn't mean it is okay to drive a species to extinction. The study of animals teaches us a lot about all species, including humans. Without the proper resources a species will fail to survive; all other things remaining constant. Throw in unplanned death and while you might claim some twisted form of "population control" you still have limited the ability of the species to reproduce appropriately...all just to limit it's area of population. In due time, by limiting a species resources you have done nothing but encourage its extinction.
Do you still think I am talking about leopards? The thrill of the hunt, the smell of blood in the air -maybe the next species to become extinct will be humanity.
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babblingdweeb
Royal Oak, Michigan, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 09:13 on April 24th, 2007
babblingdweeb, great find, great commentary. We often think of the wild as one huge backyard, forgetting that other species have their own agenda, i.e. survive.
at 14:36 on April 24th, 2007
babblingdweeb, thanks for posting this. What needs to happen is better poaching regulations and more resources to stop poachers.
There is an important distinction between hunting and poaching, as well, that I think needs to be made here. This is often forgotten in the passions around such stories. Hunters are also sometimes actively involved in and working with animal conservation and maintaining quotas, and they can be people who use the whole animal and help fight for legislation that preserves habitat.
Not all hunters are poachers, in other words--the kind of people who would have killed this leopard (or more likely, wounded it and left it to die when they couldn't track it) are definitely poachers.