no cats, no glory

Faulu the leopard under the light of night. Photographs via Ishara Camp Kenya, Masai Mara.

[Going to Kenya] was eye opening. It was obviously the most inspiring place to do field research on mammals because they have the most iconic species out there but also a really great place to take a deep dive into human-wildlife conflict because we were living in an area that was within the territory of the Maasai tribe who are local pastoralists indigenous to the area and had constant conflict with wildlife. Previous to that I was taught like, “Oh, people who are killing wildlife are just really selfish people and we gotta put the wildlife first - some of them are endangered species, can’t afford that,” and ignoring the whole social aspects of that. And so it was a really great opportunity to understand why the social injustices the Maasai were facing and why they were retaliating against the animals that were damaging their crops or using it as a way to send a message to the government that was treating the wildlife better than their tribal communities and giving the wildlife access to water and not the tribes access to water to survive, to feed their cattle, et cetera.

(…) The professors that worked there and taught us all our courses were local Kenyans that had a non traditional route to their careers. A lot of them started late in their lives, had a lot of obstacles, came from extreme poverty, had nobody in their families who did anything remotely similar to them. These local Kenyans - professors - had this unique skill to not only study the wildlife they grew up around but also to talk to the local community members and really share how these wildlife species are relevant to their lives, important to their lives, are worth coexisting with because they’re part of those tribes. They grew up in those areas and they have that local knowledge that someone dropped in from America or Europe would not have.

— Golden State Naturalist Podcast, “Urban Ecology with Miguel Ordeñana (Part 1: P-22 Mountain Lion, Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, and Other Urban Carnivores)”

The white Birmingham lioness Manyeleti, Kruger National Park, South Africa Photographed by Matthew Crookes

by John Goodrich x

by Dhir Jakharia x

Female subadult cubs in the water Jim Corbett National Park, India Photographed by Himanshu Agarwal

Lion cubs follow after their mom Serengeti National Park, Tanzania Photographed by Laura Dyer

Snyggve - growing up. Photographed by Daniel Rosengren, Tanzania.

Snyggve, also known as Bob Junior, in the last battle of his life. He was killed in a takeover of the Sametu Pride by three of the seven young males of the Saba Bora Coalition on March 2023. Photographed by James Lewin at Namiri Plains, Serengeti, Tanzania.

2023 March 11 — A senior lion known as Snyggve dies in Namiri Plains, Serengeti, Tanzania. He is killed by three young males of a seven-member coalition known as Saba Bora: “the great seven.”

(Photo shared by Sunny Safaris Tanzania.)

The last moments of Snyggve’s life. Serengeti, Tanzania, March 2023. (Source)

Lion brothers Snyggve and Tryggve (both died in 2023), then aged 4 years, accompanied by a lioness. Photographed by Giovanni Strobe, November 2014.

And if you go, I wanna go with you And if you die, I wanna die with you

Take your hand and walk away

by Hano Smit x

Lioness at night by andrewschoeman