An elephant named Fred Astaire stretches on his hind legs to reach foliage in a tree while a lion watches in Mana Pools, Zimbabwe. Only two elephants in the region are known to stand on their hind legs: photo by Marit Van Meekeren / Barcroft Media via The Guardian, 21 November 2014
They lie around.
They have no stamina, but they are beautiful and fully self-possessed.
With coats the color of the grass, they blend in perfectly
until they want to pose luxuriously on a rock.
*
The lions divide into female prides, a mother and siblings and cousins, and male
alliances, also of siblings and cousins. A pride will be associated with an
alliance, and prides will recognize some degree of kinship with other prides.
Around the area, which has been monitored and studied for half a century, the
territories of prides and alliances have ebbed and flowed. Because there is
knowledge of the kinship relations among the prides and alliances, it would be
possible to write a history of their conflicts and struggles, victories and defeats,
like the history of Europe.
*
They have no stamina.
They will chase prey if they are highly confident of victory.
Otherwise they will steal from lesser cats.
How can such nobility co-exist with such low, conniving behavior?
*
Elsewhere, but nearby
the leopard sits in its tree, or on a rock, observing the moon, sunset at its back.
They have no stamina, but they are beautiful and fully self-possessed.
With coats the color of the grass, they blend in perfectly
until they want to pose luxuriously on a rock.
*
The lions divide into female prides, a mother and siblings and cousins, and male
alliances, also of siblings and cousins. A pride will be associated with an
alliance, and prides will recognize some degree of kinship with other prides.
Around the area, which has been monitored and studied for half a century, the
territories of prides and alliances have ebbed and flowed. Because there is
knowledge of the kinship relations among the prides and alliances, it would be
possible to write a history of their conflicts and struggles, victories and defeats,
like the history of Europe.
*
They have no stamina.
They will chase prey if they are highly confident of victory.
Otherwise they will steal from lesser cats.
How can such nobility co-exist with such low, conniving behavior?
*
Elsewhere, but nearby
the leopard sits in its tree, or on a rock, observing the moon, sunset at its back.
Female lions at rest with their cubs, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: photo by Michael Nichols via The Guardian, 22 October 2014
An unsuspecting warthog took a wrong turn in the Addo elephant park in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa when he fatally crossed the path of a hungry lion: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014
The lion reaches out with its paw to stop the warthog running away: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014
The warthog makes a valiant but futile attempt to escape the clutches of the lion: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014
The lion fatally wounds the warthog: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014
The male lion sees off another lion interested in free food: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014
… and settles down to feed on his kill: photo by Dr Trix Jonkers / Caters News Agency via The Guardian, 24 April 2014
II.xi. ...What is internal
is hidden from us."---The future is hidden from us. But does the
astronomer think like this when he calculates an eclipse of the sun?
If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.
We
also say of some people that they are transparent to us. It is,
however, important as regards this observation that one human being can
be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a
strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more,
even given a mastery of the country's language, we do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them.
"I cannot know what goes on in him" is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. They are not readily accessible.
If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: from Philosophical Investigations, c. 1945-1949
J-Lo and lion: the star’s 45th-birthday cake: photo via The Guardian, 30 July 2014
I made J-Lo’s lion birthday cake -– and I’m proud of it: Samantha Brooks, The Guardian
Wednesday 30 July 2014
When Samantha Brooks got the call to make Jennifer Lopez’s 45th
birthday cake, she knew it would need steel pipes and floor flanges as
well as the requested coconut mousse filling
Last
week I got a text from Ron Gelish, an old friend of mine, and J-Lo’s
personal chef. He wanted to know if I would be interested in making a
cake. Sure, I said, what would you like? After a long pause, the reply
came: “We should probably talk over the phone -– It’s for J-Lo”. Ron
knows what I'm capable of doing and I was really pleased he felt I was
the right person to create Jennifer Lopez’s 45th-birthday cake.
Less than a minute later we were talking details. Next, Sindy
Mashiah, J-Lo’s party planner, contacted me -– I was really excited about
her vision because I have always wanted to create a cake in lion form.
We went over various ideas -– I sketched about six different positions of
J-Lo with the lion. After a few hours we agreed that she should be
lying on the lion, wearing a sleeveless onesie.
I moved straight on to making the cake since I had only two days to
do it. A cake of this size needs different pieces of hardware for
stability, including steel pipes, floor flanges, PVC pipes, as well as
more traditional baking ingredients such as modelling chocolate, Rice
Krispies, fondant and gum paste. And I had to bake the most important
element –- the requested lemon cake with coconut mousse filling.
J-Lo's birthday cake: photo via The Guardian, 30 July 2014
J-Lo, her staff, and the guests at the party were all pleased with
it. So was I -– and I’m proud we were able to pull it off in just two
days!
The photographs that have since been all over the internet and papers
don’t represent it 100% accurately -– it had been sitting out
unrefrigerated for a few hours, and the candles and sparklers beside it
caused it to melt a little. To hear the feedback –- negative or positive –-
about the positioning of her body is irrelevant [internet scamps and
gossip columnists have had much fun suggesting J-Lo is "humping"
rather than lounging on the lion]. My client was happy with what I made
and that’s all that matters to my staff and me. Maybe the design isn’t
for everyone -– we’re all entitled to our opinion -– but at the end of the
day, our cake is the most talked about to date, and I’m very proud of
that.
Custom Birthday Cake for Jennifer Lopez: image via SamiCakes, 2014
Trophy hunters from the U.S. with a male lion in Tanzania: photo by miombosafaris via The Guardian, 11 August 2009
Asiatic Lions (Panthera leo persica), male, Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Borivali, Mumbai: photo by supersujit, 2008
II.xi. ...What is internal
is hidden from us."---The future is hidden from us. But does the
astronomer think like this when he calculates an eclipse of the sun?
Lion (Panthera leo), Ngorongoro Crater: photo by Rob Qld, 2007
If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.
Lion (Panthera leo),Tanzania: photo by John Storr, 1997
We
also say of some people that they are transparent to us. It is,
however, important as regards this observation that one human being can
be a complete enigma to another. We learn this when we come into a
strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more,
even given a mastery of the country's language, we do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We cannot find our feet with them.
Lioness hunting warthogs in the western corridor of the Serengeti: photo by Schuyler Shepherd, 2009
"I cannot know what goes on in him" is above all a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. They are not readily accessible.
A lion cub walks in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park: photo by Noor Khamis/Reuters, 2012
If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
Lion (Panthera leo), Olomouc Zoo: photo by SonNy cZ, 2007
C-Boy, a black-maned male lion, and his coalition partner, Hildur, once controlled a superior territory in Tanzania’s Serengeti national park, but they were deposed by a squad of four males known to researchers as the Killers. The photographer came across C-boy and Hildur hunkered down in the rain: ‘I had never before seen these two senior coalition males together’: photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic, via The Guardian, 28 August 2013
Leopard (Panthera pardus): photo by Rupert Taylor-Price, 16 September 2008
Leopard (Panthera pardus pardus): photo by Michael Potts, 2 July 2011
Leopard relaxing on a tree: photographer unknown, n.d.; image by Bogdan, 26 November 2008 (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Just 45 Amur leopards remain in the wild, but there are 220 of the critically endangered cat in a global conservation breeding programmes in zoos around the world with a reintroduction scheme currently in the planning stages: photo by Chris Sargent/Alamy via The Guardian, 15 August 2013
A wild leopard prepares to pounce on a forest guard after it strayed into Prakash Nagar village near Salugara in India, on 19 July; the animal ended up being shot: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011
Six people were mauled by the leopard before it was caught by forestry department officials: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011
The animal leaps on an armed forest guard in Prakash Nagar village, India: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011
Forest guards try to ensnare the leopard: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011
The animal tries to escape from forestry officials: photo by AP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011
The leopard attempts to flee the village after attacking forest guards and injuring residents: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011
A forest guard prepares to shoot the leopard after he and his colleagues were attacked. Officials made several attempts to tranquilize the animal –- many were injured in the process. The animal, which suffered injuries caused by knives and batons, died later in the evening at a veterinary centre: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP via The Guardian, 20 July 2011
A male wild leopard climbed a net after it fell into a water reservoir tank at a tea estate in Haskhowa, West Bengal, India: photo by Diptendu Dutta / AFP, 2012
Leopard in a tree: photo by David Berkowitz, 16 September 2008
Female Leopard (Panthera pardus): photo by Steve Jurvetson, 1 July 2011
African lions under threat from a growing predator: the American hunter: United States now biggest market for lion hunting trophies, wildlife coalition warns: Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, The Guardian, Tuesday 1 March 2011
ReplyDeleteAmerican hunters are emerging as a strong and growing threat to the survival of African lions, with demand for trophy rugs and necklaces driving the animals towards extinction, a coalition of wildlife organisations has said.
Demand for hunting trophies, such as lion skin rugs, and a thriving trade in animal parts in the US and across the globe have raised the threat levels for African lions, which are already under assault because of conflicts with local villagers and shrinking habitat.
"The African lion is a species in crisis," said Jeff Flocken of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "The king of the jungle is heading toward extinction, and yet Americans continue to kill lions for sport."
Two-thirds of the lions hunted for sport were brought to America over the last 10 years, a report released by the coalition said.*
_____
West African lions on verge of extinction, report says: Afua Hirsch, west Africa correspondent, The Guardian, Tuesday 8 January 2013
It is known for its vibrant culture, oil wealth and huge human population, but few people associate Nigeria with lions. Now a report says the almost forgotten species of west African lions found in countries such as Nigeria are on the verge of extinction following a decline in recent years.
The UK-based conservation group LionAid says as few as 645 lions remain in the wild in western and central Africa. It says lions are extinct in 25 African nations and virtually extinct in 10, and it estimates that 15,000 wild lions remain on the continent as a whole, compared with about 200,000 30 years ago.
"There has been a catastrophic decline in the populations of lions in Africa, and particularly west Africa," said Dr Pieter Kat, trustee of LionAid. "These lions have been neglected for a very long time and do not have adequate protection programs. They are in real danger of extinction."
Demand for lion bones offers South African breeders a lucrative return: Fears of a rise in poaching as Asian traders look for alternatives to tigers as a source of ingredients for traditional medicine: Sébastien Hervieu, The Guardian, Tuesday 16 April 2013
ReplyDeleteKoos Hermanus would rather not give names to the lions he breeds. So here, behind a 2.4-metre high electric fence, is 1R, a three-and-a-half-year-old male, who consumes 5kg of meat a day and weighs almost 200kg. It will only leave its enclosure once it has been "booked"' by a hunter, most of whom are from the United States. At that point the big cat will be set loose in the wild for the first time in its life, 96 hours before the hunt begins. It usually takes about four days to track down the prey, with the trophy hunter following its trail on foot, accompanied by big-game professionals including Hermanus. He currently has 14 lions at his property near Groot Marico, about two and a half hours by road west of Johannesburg.
After the kill Hermanus will be paid $10,000, but he can boost his earnings further by selling the lion's bones to a Chinese dealer based in Durban. At $165 a kilo (an average figure obtained from several sources) the breeder will pocket something in the region of $5,000.
If his client does not want to keep the lion's head as a trophy, the skull will fetch another $1,100. "If you put your money in the bank you get 8% interest," he explains, "but at present lions show a 30% return."
According to several specialists the new market is soaring. "In the past three months we have issued as many export licences as in a whole year," says an official in Free State, home to most of South Africa's 200 lion breeders. In 2012 more than 600 lions were killed by trophy hunters. The most recent official figures date from 2009, certifying export of 92 carcasses to Laos and Vietnam. At about that time breeders started digging up the lion bones they had buried here and there, for lack of an outlet.
Asian traders started taking an interest in South African lions in 2008, when the decline in tiger numbers – now in danger of extinction – became acute. In traditional Chinese medicine, tiger wine, made using powdered bones, allegedly cures many ills including ulcers, cramp, rheumatism, stomach ache and malaria. The beverage is also claimed to have tonic qualities, boosting virility.
Despite the lack of scientific proof this potion is very popular, so with tiger bones increasingly scarce, vendors are replacing them with the remains of lions. Traders soon realised that South Africa could be a promising source. It is home to 4,000 to 5,000 captive lions, with a further 2,000 roaming freely in protected reserves such as the Kruger national park. Furthermore such trade is perfectly legal.
[continues:]
ReplyDeleteBut a South African investigator, who has been working in this field for 35 years, paints a murky picture. "The legal market only accounts for about half the business, the other half depends on fraud and poaching, which make it possible to obtain bigger volumes, more quickly, and without attracting attention," he asserts, adding: "It's exactly the same people buying lion bones and poaching rhino horns. It's all connected."
.
Estimating the precise size of the African lion population is notoriously difficult. Counting them requires bait to be put out to lure each individual animal, which must then be photographed from both sides to ensure no duplication. "Counting lions to the very last individual is humanly impossible. They are difficult to count, and the finances involved simply do not allow such venture," said the African lion expert Sarel van der Merwe.
But there was broad agreement among other conservationists that the LionAid figures were within the range of possible figures. "We put the figure slightly higher, at around 25,000 lions, but whether you use these figures, the LionAid report or the Duke study, there is common agreement among everyone involved in conservation of African lions that the situation is extremely serious," said Will Travers, director of the Born Free foundation. "In west and central Africa there are clusters in Burkina Faso, Niger, the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Chad, but the overall situation is looking dire."
Last year the Fish and Wildlife Service in the US – which is the world's biggest importer of trophy-hunted lions – said it would examine whether the species warranted protection under the Endangered Species Act. Activists say more than 5,600 wild African lions were hunted and exported as trophies between 1999 and 2008.
Conservationists argue that lions should be included on the convention on international trade in endangered species list of the most endangered species in the world, affording tight protection on hunting and trade. The Asiatic lion – of which an estimated 200 remain in the wild – is on the list, but no species of African lions are included.
Efforts to impose stricter regulations on the trade in lions and lion parts are being frustrated by a powerful pro-hunting lobby, conservationists say. "We should be moving as speedily as possible to introduce international controls on anything to do with lions, but we are facing huge resistance from the trophy hunting industry," Travers said.
Van der Merwe said: "In central to west Africa, lion numbers are too low to allow any means of negative impact on the populations and hunting should be prohibited, as should any form of killing, irrespective whether a few lions may be habitual livestock killers. Otherwise, we may well lose the lion as a species."
tom, you take us in so many different directions in this post that i feel i am, in the end, standing still but with such tremendous pressure on me that i can barely stand.
ReplyDeleteWittgenstein is exceedingly interesting. j-lo is not. but that any person might think that such a cake, such an incarnation, might be necessary or desirable... but then again, that any person might think that flesh bred specifically for his bullet might be, not necessary but - desirable...
sometimes (more often than naught these days) it feels to me as though someone with claws waits over the hatchlings table for flesh to be born so that it might tear the flesh apart. one or two might escape and in turn rise to the place of eyes and claws and repeat the cycle.
standing by -
or perhaps rolling beneath the hatchlings table for cover...
xo
erin
Erin, About the leopard killed for invading the villagers' gardens, alas this is not an isolated instance. Human encroachment upon the habitat of the leopard is the simple cause.
ReplyDeleteThis leopard's death is a familiar tragedy: John Barker The Guardian, Friday 22 July 2011 11.32 EDT
The attack by a leopard on up to six forest rangers in Siliguri in the Sikkim region of north-east India was a tragic result for both the people and animal victims of the conflict occurring between humans and wildlife.
In this case it was a male leopard, a species that sometimes adapts to moving into semi-urban areas, that became cornered – and as the photos in the press clearly show, the animal was fighting for his survival as only such a big cat can.
The tragedy of its death occurred in a situation where the forest guards were clearly attempting to safely stop it in its tracks. In ideal circumstances it would have been tranquilised, removed and later released in its natural habitat away from urban development. Why the leopard was there in the first place may never be known, but there are other similar incidents with happier outcomes, in which the animal was tranquilised and removed and no party injured.
Human-wildlife conflict issues in India – and particularly in the northern areas of the country – are one of the daily concerns for so many rural communities. Occasionally and tragically this can lead to death or injury of people and animals, but people's livelihoods are more often affected as a result of damage or consumption of crops or livestock.
Elephants coming to feed on crops or just moving through a farmer's fields can decimate a farmer's annual crop in a single night, and predators such as leopards and tigers take valuable livestock. Less spectacularly but equally damaging, wild pigs, antelope, deer and monkeys all wreak havoc on farmers' essential subsistence crops such a maize, rice or wheat.
As human populations increase so do food demands, leading to the development of additional land for farming, which frequently leads to previously natural habitats, such as forests, being converted for farming, and populations of animals becoming more and more constricted.
And it is, of course, the people who are poorest and most dependent on their crops and livestock who are the most affected. Traditionally and most simply, watching over crops and scaring away animals has been the most effective method, but it is time-consuming and sometimes even dangerous.
Technology such as electric fences, ditches or other barriers can be used but sometimes are only effective in the short term against intelligent animals such as elephants, which can pull down trees to break fencing.
Use of several natural deterrents is possible – for instance, finding materials or structures animals don't like and won't pass through to get to the crops: hot pepper sprays or unpalatable but valuable crops such as mint or camomile, even bees – all have been used successfully in different instances.
Increased conflict between humans and wildlife will almost certainly continue unless effective methods of enabling them to live next to each other are developed and put into practice.
An alternative approach is through compensation processes whereby – most commonly for the loss of livestock – individuals are paid for reported and verified losses. A successful scheme in the Terai Arc in north-east India around the Corbett National Park is run by a community-based organisation to help provide a quick response to any livestock mortalities by predators in co-operation with the government forest department, which provides the bulk of compensation payments. This helps communities quickly come to terms with such losses and reduces the likelihood of immediate retaliatory action against the predators, which in nearly all cases are species themselves under threat of disappearing from their habitats in so many places.
About J-Lo's disgusting birthday cake, it did not seem possible to attach any comment to this repulsive spectacle, which speaks for itself. Like other images displayed, it is included as part of a construction, which as a totality says something that neither individual images nor any amount of words could say.
ReplyDeleteIn this construction, certain images bespeak specific animal abuse. One instance would be the American trophy hunters. Another would be J-Lo's birthday cake. The story about the lions being bred for their trophy body parts (see story in comment above) would suggest a third.
Shooting something and mounting it on a wall or in a trophy case, or boiling down its knuckle bones to cook up a bogus sex potion, or humping its image to show your power over it -- these are all forms of disrespect of fellow living creatures.
The "artist" who fashioned the lion cake for the #star"'s million-dollar celeb bash in the Hamptons reported that J-Lo had ordered a cake that would convey her exercising "a sense of power".
J-Lo's Birthday Cake Controversy
The power of "our" species over all others has been demonstrated before, and will be demonstrated again, until in the end we're the only species left.
It was a bit inconsistent of me to suggest that the images tell the story, offer three examples of such images, and then withhold the third.
ReplyDeleteSimply too sad-making to show the caged-in young lions "bred for harvest" on the South African death-sport farm awaiting release to be killed by brave trophy hunters.
There is a dangerous wild beast at loose upon the Earth, and it is not a lion but a knight of the realm.
tom, james and i spent time with your post yesterday morning and in regards to the hunting of lions raised for hunt - it is so astounding, so abhorrent, and so (as you say) sad-making, so obviously WRONG, that one is moved to say very little as the act itself is the demonstration and proof of its wrongness.
ReplyDeletethere was a bit at the writer's almanac (ya, i go there:) about Margaret Anderson and the avant- garde magazine she published in the early 1900's. in response to the burning of her magazines by the U.S. Post because of the obscene nature of James Joyce's "Ulysses" published there, Margaret Anderson responded as such, "I wasn't born to be a fighter. The causes I have fought for have invariably been causes that should have been gained by a delicate suggestion. Since they never were, I made myself into a fighter."
these causes, environmental, sociological, political, that you underscore on your blog, SHOULD invariably be changed by a delicate suggestion - but are not and will not be. we will not learn. unless we give an absolute overhaul to our philosophical intentions to existence. and this will not happen. and rightful fences will not be built. and the other rightful fences will not be taken down.
and yet we can not give up trying to provoke change. can not. on the dumb luck chance that there be a fracture in the hollow sepulcher of structure and systems that we live today. and that we find that fracture. and we blow it apart. and begin to rebuild with the realization that we are not at the top of the pyramid but at the mercy of it.
xo
erin