World Lion and Elephant Day

With the recent World Lion and Elephant day passing for another year, it gives rise to the pertinent question of the state of our wildlife after the previous eighteen-months, but before I get onto that, let me share with you, one of my favourite lion photos from recent times.

Early one May morning in 2019, beside a meandering stream that ran through the heart of the Serengeti, my guide and I found a lioness in the company of her three very young cubs, as well as another lioness’ slightly older youngsters. All six cubs were extremely energetic and were constantly bounding between the thickets ensuring a lazy morning was not going to be allowed. It was babysitting to the extreme. One of the cubs nonchalantly approached the back of our vehicle and took a liking to the wheel cover. I silently made my way to the back of the vehicle and popped up out of the roof. Looking down on the naughty cub, I had my camera ready. After deciding that the wheel cover was not to his taste, he looked up and that’s when I took the shot. After deciding that I was pretty boring, he jogged back to the rest of the youngsters who were having some rough and tumble with the increasingly impatient babysitter.

If you look closely, you can see my reflection in its eye.

Although I have many elephant photos, my dream is to capture these beautiful and charismatic pachyderms in front of Kilimanjaro in the famous Amboseli National Park. If it hadn’t been for the world-wide pandemic, then maybe I would have been able to share one with you, however for now, here is a shot from a beautiful matriarch from the same trip as described above.

The Serengeti is not just open plains you know!

With travel still not as easy as it used to be, raising awareness via all mediums is arguably more important than ever. I find it incredibly sad that even the most famous icons of the world’s wildlife, the lion and the elephant are all unfortunately in peril.

Once lockdowns began, it was splashed across the media (be it social or national) that wildlife was thriving from the lack of people travelling, that carbon emissions were suddenly zero and the natural state of the world was as it should be.

I cannot describe how incredibly short-sighted and ignorant these views are. We now live in a world where wildlife must have a monetary value, where it relies on tourism so heavily, that without people flying half-way across the world to see an elephant or a lion, our planet’s most incredible species will simply disappear as an ever-expanding human population pushes wildlife ever closer to the brink.

I won’t dwell on this though, it is for you to make up your minds about what stance to take in this argument. But I hope you will all agree that any time spent in the company of lions and elephants is time not to be forgotten.