Thinking Like a Mountain

An ecosystem only works when every plant and animal is connected together in a balance, a harmony that equalizes the predators, and the prey, and creates a symmetric bond.  Aldo Leopold came to understand this during a hunting trip, when he witnessed this harmony in nature.

Leopold goes on a hunting trip and sees a wolf swim across a river below them.  The old wolf is met by   a pack of grown pups who greet her excitedly.  Leopold and his buddies start shooting the wolves, excited to kill them.  Then as they watch the old wolf die, they see a fire in her eyes that makes him realize there is a balance to the mountain, and he has just disrupted it. Leopold comes to understand that a mountain needs its wolves, because without wolves to eat the deer, the deer eat everything on the mountain, leaving it bare.

This article was really sad.  I was amazed to read about how the hunters shot the wolves without hesitation!  To them that was a great opportunity, but to our generation, it seems inhuman.  There was a lot of descriptive language, which helped me to connect.  I understood what he was saying about the mountain being eaten alive.  It was awful for me to think about them killing the wolves so easily.

TED Talk About Lions and Leopards

We think we know and understand everything.  We are the intelligent ones, the ones who can think and speak, and that makes us special.  But we underestimate animals, and overestimate ourselves.

Beverly and Dereck Joubert have spent years studying and filming the lions and leopards of Africa.  They followed a baby leopard they named Lachadema, meaning light from the sky, for 4 and half years since she was a young cub.  She got comfortable with them to climb in their jeep once, but they understood the importance of teaching her not to do that.  On Lachadema's first hunt, she killed a baboon, later discovering it had a young baby.  She took care of it for many hours, which was incredible and amazing to the filmers.  In the 5 years they worked with Lachadema, 10,000 leopards were legally shot, not including the leopards killed by poachers.  When they were born there were 450,000 lions, 45,000 tigers, 50,000 cheetahs, and 700,000 leopards.  Now there are only 20,000 lions, 3,000 tigers, 12,000 cheetahs, and 50,000 leopards left.  When a male lion is killed, a new male will take over the pride, killing all the cubs and some of the lionesses.  For that one one male, between 20 and 30 lions are killed.  If the lions disappear, whole ecosystems in Africa will disappear too.

This video was heartbreaking for me.  All those beautiful creatures killed for fur, killed for sport.  The downfall of these populations in such a short time is incredible, horrible.  These amazing animals are so strong and graceful and beautiful, a dying species.  The footage that was captured was amazing.  They got footage of lions trying to take down an elephant, and saw how strong the will to survive can be, even after hope is lost.  Big cats are my favorite animals, so this video was personal for me, and hit home.  Someday I'd like to be able to say I've helped make a difference for these predators.