Tag archives for big cats
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The Big Cats Initiative Grants Program seeks to identify and support projects that engage in immediate actions leading to reductions in big cat mortality. BCI Grantee Florian Weise provides this dispatch from the field: Leopard given GPS collar after capture on Namibian cattle ranch A large portion of central Namibia’s landscape is used for cattle…
Cute – but endangered – The Lions of Gir
Posted by International League of Conservation Photographers on March 5, 2012 
After having spent an amazing time in the vicinity of this incredible animal, I only hope that the right people will change their mind and give these lions a chance, so that we once again can see them roam freely as they should – Uri Golman
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The latest from cheetah country comes to you in 3 parts: Part I: Ghanzi District, Botswana. Late October, 2011 – Cheetah Conservation Botswana It is Sunday at last, time to rest. A lazy feeling takes hold of cheetah camp, even Murphy is pretty low key and Cat…
Cape Town, South Africa, December 21, 2011 — I have just returned from a 9-day trip through the remote North West Province and the Karoo in the Eastern Cape. It is my day off and I fully intend to do nothing other than stroll around beautiful Cape Town without purpose. In famous Greenmarket Square, while…
Posted by As of today, the National Geographic Society has issued 10,000 grants funding research and exploration since 1890–including ten National Geographic grant projects that, according to an internal panel, “have made the greatest difference in understanding the Earth.” Barbara Moffet interviews Krithi Karanth, a 32-year-old conservation biologist based in Bangalore, India, the recipient of National Geographic’s 10,000th grant.
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National Geographic photographer Nick Nichols is working on a new project in Africa, photographing Serengeti lions. But this assignment is something new, even for a magazine known for pushing the boundaries of photography. Backed up by a team of National Geographic experts, Nichols is deploying a remotely operated miniature helicopter to dangle a camera above a pride of predator, and a toy car to drive a camera within a paw swat of the big cats. The results he hopes for: pictures of Africa’s wild lions such as no one has ever seen.
This is the first installment from reporting on cheetah conservation and human/predator co-existence from Southern Africa.
The University of Arizona mascot is the Wild Cat, or bobcat, so it is only fitting that the university is involved in research and conservation initiatives for the benefit of wild cats all over the world. “Our mission is to conserve and research all 36 species of wild cats worldwide,” Lisa Haynes, of the University…
Photos taken on 18 January 2011 by a remote camera traps we have set up as part of an ongoing conservation science project to study the Andean bear illustrate that our sense of hearing, along with our sense of smell, is relatively weak compared to those of the large mammals living in the Peruvian forest, and that they react to us even when we don’t know they are there.
Elvis Kisimir is the African People & Wildlife Fund’s Human Wildlife Conflict Officer. He is a young Maasai man, well known and respected in the Maasai Steppe where the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative and Dr. Laly Lichtenfeld of the African People & Wildlife Fund have teamed up to save lions.
While a new government statement announces the stretch across the Park will not be paved, conservationists’ concerns remain–focused on the traffic, not the tarmac.
South Africa’s Enigmatic Big Cats Under Growing Threat
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on June 16, 2011 
Leopard and cheetah are two of southern Africa’s most enigmatic cat species. But both are under growing threat from livestock farmers, trophy hunters and both the legal and illegal trade in wildlife species. Now conservationists are pushing for tighter controls.
My continuing look into the world of cheetah conservation and an exploration into the lives of ambassador cheetah in the US brought me to Animal Ark, a 70 acre wildlife sanctuary, located roughly between the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation and the city of Reno, Nevada. Directors Aaron and Diana Hiibel founded Animal Ark 31 years…
India’s Latest Tiger Count Is Seriously Inadequate
Posted by Stuart Pimm on March 28, 2011 
The latest census of wild tigers in India, home to half the world’s wild tigers, shows that the number of big cats has increased by more than two hundred in four years. But the good news may be obscuring serious threats to the country’s iconic feline.
Through photographs, conservation photographer Marcy Mendelson documents the work of cheetah ambassadors, wild animals trained to teach appreciation of the species by allowing people to approach and see up close the magnificence of the world’s fastest land mammal.
National Geographic Big Cats Initiative grantee Anne Kent Taylor continues her blogging from the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Her project to fence traditional livestock enclosures is designed to keep lions, leopards, and hyenas at bay. Now she finds that honey badgers are also being thwarted.
A restaurant owner could face RM600,000 (U.S.$196,000) in fines and time in jail after authorities found him in possession of meat and parts of several protected species including several pieces of dried tiger parts, TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, said today. “Officers from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) in Pahang, a…
Currently playing in cinemas across the United States is the latest National Geographic wildlife feature film, The Last Lions. It’s a poignant story about the struggle of a lioness and her cubs in one of the last remnants of wilderness available to Africa’s legendary big cats. Chased from her territory by a rival pride of…
Photograph by Beverly Joubert The petition filed with the U.S. Department of Interior by a coalition of wildlife groups to list African lions as Endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act has been welcomed by Dereck Joubert, director of the new National Geographic film The Last Lions. “This petition comes at a vitally important time…
National Geographic Big Cats Initiative grantee Anne Kent Taylor sent another dispatch from the field in Kenya’s Maasai Mara region. Her account details life among Africa’s wild big cats and the growing conflict between humans and animals competing for the same resources. Anne Kent Taylor’s National Geographic grant supports her work in providing chainlink fencing…
By Jordan Schaul In November, my colleague and friend Anthony Nielsen, a head carnivore keeper at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, graciously offered me, my sister and my four-year-old niece a behind-the-scenes tour of the zoo’s famed Lion House. On prior visits to the Lincoln Park Zoo, I always visited the Kovler Lion House, a historical landmark…
Nepal’s estimated 120 adult wild tigers do not take into account the young mountain landscape in the Churia region, so the country could be home to more big cats than believed. Using a grant from the National Geographic Society/Waitt Institute Program, biologist Kanchan Thapa is currently in the field, setting camera traps and looking for…
Investors in sport hunting in Uganda’s game parks have up to January next year to stop shooting wild animals for fun, The Uganda news site The New Vision reported recently. According to The New Vision: “This follows a resolution from the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) to cancel hunting concessions offered years ago to the wildlife…
The lion has long been a traditional symbol of the United Kingdom. Lions feature prominently in the royal coat of arms. The touring rugby football team representing the UK is nicknamed “the Lions.” The UK was often portrayed in political cartoons as the British Lion, similar to the Russian Bear or the American Eagle. So it…
Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM) is a large protected landscape along the Thailand-Myanmar border of the Tenasserim Range that covers more than 18,000 square kilometers (7,000 square miles), and is one of the largest protected area systems in Southeast Asia. Most WEFCOM habitat has the potential to hold approximately 10 tigers per 100 square kilometers (40…
