Such a shame... . I think this big cat will probably go extinct in the wild in our lifetimes, i wish it wouldn't and i wish there was more we could do, but there are so many ignorant and arrogant idiots in Russia and other parts of the world who'd rather have the skins and meat of these animals than assure this cats species future survival.
Although I agree that animals going extinct is horrible. Calling poor people who do what they have to do to survive or to give their family a much better life stupid and ignorant and arrogant is not going to help anything. Think about if you were put in a situation where you were a very poor man and you life and income depended wholly on your livestock that you own and you see this big cat that was eyeing your livestock. What would you do? Do you place you and your family's life on a lower pedestals than a cats life? If an Amur Leopard attacked you for some reason, would you allow it to kill you so that the animal could go on living in the wild?
I'm all for helping animal numbers go up in the wild, but you must understand it all comes back to the very poor people who live in these areas. And I just think it is incredibly mean to be calling them ignorant and arrogant when you don't know a single thing about how these people live. All the man who killed this animal probably wanted was so that it wouldn't attack his livestock or something, and put his whole family at risk of being in even worse condition than they are.
I personally value my life much higher than that of a cat's, be it endangered or not.
The biggest threat to this cat is not being attacked by some poor rural farmers you are defending, the biggest threat to this cats survival is the russian fur and chinese medicine trade- surely you don't put people wanting its furs and meat above the cats survival? Oh hang on, people might get cold without the cats furs to wear and some chinese person won't get their medicince to make them perform better in bed etc
. I am not having a go at the poor- i am having a go at the "ignorant and arrogant idiots in Russia and other parts of the world who'd rather have the
skins and meat of these animals", not people defending some peice of farmland.
And either way, this cat does not prefer to live in farm land, it is a forest and mountain dwelling cat, and in the absolutely puny numbers it barely survives in, it is hardly much of a threat to livestock in russia. Even in the scenario you gave, I don't put a cats life about a humans, but what about a whole species? Would you rather have someone live in poverty, who will probably always live in poverty regardless of the cats existance, or have the entire species go extinct because someone feared it might steal a sheep? Letting the cat fall into extinction will not make people living in poverty in Russia any better off.
But the fact of the matter is it isn't innocent farmers killing these cats that are the biggest threat, the amur leopards furs have always been highly prized in russia amoungst the rich and upperclass, and china also has a large demand for this cat in its traditional medicines too.
The excuse that it makes it ok to push an animal to extinction if you live in poverty just doesn't rub off on me. Orangutans are going extinct in the wild because people are cutting down the rainforests they live in and poaching the animals themselves, most of the people that cut these rainforests down and kill these animals for the bush meat trade live in poverty, would you put human beings above the future survival rainforests and orangutans?
I do feel sorry for people that live in poverty. But why should an entire species have to go extinct because it become's a nuisance to us or its death becomes profitable? These sorts of animals have taken millions upon millions of years to evolve, many have taken even longer to evolve and have also been around much longer than us. What right do we have to do undo millions of years work of irreplaceable evolution just because the animal doesn't happen to be something useful like a cow or a pig? If we let every person in poverty do whatever they want to become weathier, animals like mammals would go extinct every week, prostitution and crime will increase, polution to the world will become even more chokingly bad etc.
And with the farmer versus amur leopard scenario, i don't think it even has to exist. There are plenty of places in Africa for example where people/villages/farmers have learnt to live in harmony with animals like lions.
The whole reason why the amur leopard is going extinct in Russia is because Russia does not care about it as much as the siberian tiger- if russia really wanted to, it could save this cat like it did for the siberian tiger. The siberian tiger is well protected because it has acheived fame around the world and so russia looks after it for its image- if you ask anyone if they've heard of a siberian tiger before and where it comes from, chances are they'll be able to tell you. But you ask a random if they've heard of an amur leopard and where does it come from, chances are they'll be like "what leopard?".
edit: "Sigh"...IMHO Saying you value a humans life over an animals is fair enough. But on the other hand, it is not unlike saying "A human being is more important than any other living thing", which when you put it that way, doesn't sound right. I don't know what religion or philosophy you follow, but if we continue to say "We are superior to everything on this earth and any animal that gets in our way deserves to die if it doesn't get out of our way", then we might as well not give a cr*p about wildlife conservation at all if all we do is let entire species of animals go extinct just for the wellbeing of a couple of poachers or whatever.
And to be honest, although you might find it shocking, i don't put a humans life above an entire species of animals survival when the animal is at the brink of extinction or severly threatened, i would rather one person out of our massive worldwide population continue to live poverty and save an entire species of animals, then let an entire species of animals go extinct to let one person live an easier life.
edit: I'm just trying to get you understand where i coming from. If i was living in poverty in Russia, i would not take my blame out on the innocent amur leopards, i would take my blame out on the government as to the reason why i was living poverty.
When it comes down to it, the reason why these big cats are going extinct, is because of poorly defended wildlife reserves, the poaching of the leopards and their prey (which is a big factor in the amur leopards decline, many are starving to death, which then forces them to come down from the mountains and eat farm animals to survive, which inevitably ends up getting the leopards killed by angry farmers), deforestation, the demand for the leopards furs, and the demand for its other body products in China's medicine trade.
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