Stop the Animal Killings!

I was reading my current favourite photography magazine – Practical Photography, on the way to work today and came across this article on Wildlife photography. Specifically, the photographs were by UK-based wildlife photographer Elliott Neep, who has taken a special interest in tigers. “When you look at a tiger you realise that you’re not at the top of the food chain any more. You’re an animal, just meat and bones, and you’re on the menu. It’s a humbling experience”, he said.

It was a coincidence too that just a couple of weeks ago, I had watched a documentary about two guys (one of them a tiger trainer) who embarked on a dangerous journey to release two tigers back to the wild. The tigers had been fed and trained in the zoo since young, so they had little experience hunting in the wild. The documentary caught my attention back then, because it was extremely dangerous for the two men. Wild animals cannot be domesticated – you must always respect their majesty, and the men had no idea if the tigers will turn on them instead, after their primal instincts had been revived. Yet these animals are so beautiful, they should always be part of this place we share called Earth.

Interestingly, Elliott had this to say as well, “There’s only one way to cure climate change and that’s to wipe out mankind a la Twelve Monkeys. If you got rid of plants, the world would die – they’re a fundamental aspect of the food chain. If you got rid of insects, the plants would die, and so the world would die. If you got rid of humans the world world be better off. We’re such a cancer! It’s a truly awakening moment when you realise that there are bigger, more powerful, more splendid things than you or I.”.

Well, what he said is debatable, but facts about the slaughter of various species of animals are undisputable, and many have become extinct due to poaching. Apparently, there could be as little as 3500 tigers left in the wild. The three subspecies – the Caspian, Bali and Javan, are already gone. People in China and other East Asian states have been a large cause of the demand for tiger parts, they are believed to have medicinal value. The enormous demand for these medicines has fuelled poaching for many years.

You can do your part to stop this unnessary brutality! In a letter to the magazine’s readers, Elliott appealed to the reader (not the entire letter quoted),

Imagine walking in the woods with your young family. You contentedly watch the children skipping about around you. Suddenly you feel a whack on the back of your head, then another, and another. You stumble and fall. In a haze of agony, you see things running at you, brandishing rocks and sticks. The beating is relentless and you fall unconscious. You awake to the most indescribable pain. Your body feels like it’s burning. Through a blur of blood and legs, you see your children lying motionless in front of you. They are not moving, not breathing. With one final crushing blow, you know no more.

This is the brutal reality of the skin trade. There’s no humane ending for the majestic tiger. They are simply trapped or poisoned, then beaten, tied down and skinned, sometimes alive. Bullets would simply put a hole in the skin and in the captalist black market economies to which these pelts are destined, that just isn’t acceptable.

His letter requested for readers to write to our own MP and ask them to place a ‘Parliamentary Question’ on the agenda, to “flex our democratic muscles and ensure the issue gets an airing”. As I don’t think that approach will work where I live, since we don’t really have democratic rights, I checked out the EIA – The Environmental Investigaton Agency website to see what we can do, to read about the species in peril. You can do your part by looking under the “What Can I Do?” section of the website.

If you wish to download Elliott Nepp’s stunning tiger photos for your desktop wallpaper, all you have to do is to log onto practicalphotography.co.uk and click on the free wallpaper link on the home page (not exactly straightforward, have to scroll a little bit down).