Like a lot of the contributors to Photo-Africa, I have a lifelong love of big cats. Gerry and the team do a great job of bringing the stories and images of Africa’s cats to a wider audience, so when he asked me if I’d write something for the site I hoped I wasn’t going too far off-topic by highlighting the stories of two other cat species (and one very tiny snail) that are close to my heart.
The first is the Amur Leopard, the Asiatic cousin of the cats that feature regularly on these pages.
It is a tragic but almost inevitable fact that the Amur Leopard will become extinct in the wild in the next few years, despite a recent surge in activity to try to prevent this. It is estimated there are just 35 individuals left in the wild, the species really is teetering on a knife-edge. I am a keen supporter of The Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance (ALTA) who are doing great work in Russia and China to endeavour to safeguard this species, so I’d encourage you to check out their work.
It’s quite interesting to compare the African and Amur subspecies, you’ll see from these images that the Amur has longer fur and very distinctive, beautiful pale blue-green eyes.
The second species I work with a lot is the Snow Leopard, to my mind the most beautiful and mysterious of all big cats.
The taxonomy of the Snow Leopard only adds to the mystery of this cat. Some studies have shown it to be more closely related to tigers than leopards, no one is quite sure. It just adds to my fascination that they remain a very distinct species, quite different from their other cat relatives.
The remote mountains of central Asia ensure at least some Snow Leopard habitat is likely to remain intact but even this species is estimated to have around only 7,000 surviving individuals. I’ve provided images to the Snow Leopard Trust for the last 2 years and it’s thrilled me to see my work helping their efforts.
In trying to capture the public’s imagination to raise awareness and take action it’s natural that photographers and NGOs focus on some of the more ‘glamorous’ species like Rhino, Gorillas or Snow Leopard that people have a greater emotional response to. But I wanted to finish by sharing a true story with you that encapsulated for me the importance of conserving all species.
This is the story of the Fregate Island Snail.
A few months ago I was at Marwell Wildlife, the famous zoo and conservation charity near where I live in the UK. I was invited behind the scenes to have a look at some of the species not on public display. They have had considerable success breeding populations of snails and had recently taken delivery of a consignment of Fregate Island Snails from London Zoo.
Geoff Read, the head of reptiles and invertaebrates, opened and handed me a large plastic box to reveal a population of maybe 200 very small and inconspicuous snails with the words “Now, these are special”. I looked somewhat puzzled
And then he said to me “You are holding in your hands the entire global population of those snails, they exist nowhere else on earth but here in your hands”.
I can’t explain what that feels like. I was speechless, horrified and yet felt incredibly privileged all in one moment. So for me, making sure that as many species as possible survive and never end up being reduced to a few specimens in a box or a cage is quite enough justification to continue my efforts, however small, for many years to come.
Tom Hadley
Tom’s Links:
- Website: Tom Hadley Photography
- Facebook Page: Tom Hadley Photography on Facebook
- Twitter: Follow Tom on Twitter
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WOW Tom you have some great images of animals that other wild life photographers only dream about getting, such rare sightings, well done mate you can be proud I love all of them
super shots and thanks for the look to the other side of the pond Tom!
Spectacular photographs!! One of my favorite episodes of Planet Earth was the one on snow leopards. They are a truly magnificent and rare species of cat. Those photographs must have been extremely rewarding to capture.