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( peaceful music)
- [Narrator] Africa, the third largest
continent on the planet.
The world's great reserve of biodiversity.
But in a few short years, urban development has accelerated,
creating densely populated new cities
and spreading asphalt and cement over what were,
until recently, unspoiled rural areas.
Despite this vertiginous rate of progress,
the forest savannas, valleys, and deserts in Africa
are still home to a quarter of the world's
4700 species of mammal.
Among them, animals have become
symbols of the planet's wildlife.
Hippos, antelopes, giraffes,
rhinos, and the big cats.
Lion, leopards and cheetahs.
Over the last 150 years,
animal populations and their natural habitats
have shrunk dramatically.
Meanwhile the human population of Africa,
almost a billion people, is doubling every 20 years.
Placing enormous pressure on wildlife
which is forced to compete for land,
fresh water, and food.
Today, Africa has 1200 protected areas
which cover some two million square kilometers
and represent around nine percent of the continent's
total area.
Some of these areas are in Namibia,
the least populous country on the continent
which has preserved the largest areas of wilderness.
Here, as in neighboring countries,
the most successful national parks
cater to a thriving tourist industry
that provides benefits to the local community.
Yet outside these areas, the situation for wildlife
is catastrophic.
Most Africans still live off the land
depending on crops and pasture.
Even where soil is of poor quality
and water is scarce.
Mankind is the principal rival, enemy, and threat
to all other species.
The apex predator of Africa,
threatening the very existence
of the great carnivores of the animal kingdom,
The lion, the leopard, and the cheetah
in a desperate fight for survival.
The big cats live in the shadow of this threat.
Their reign of the African wilderness is almost over.
Is this the end of the big cats?
They're spectacular animals of great beauty
with extraordinarily physical abilities,
highly specialized for hunting their prey,
and surviving in the most hostile conditions.
But none of these characteristics
are of any use to them as they face the disappearance
of their habitat.
The ongoing persecution of these animals
makes it probably that they will soon be gone
from their remaining habitats in the wild.
To survive only within the confines of parks
as part of controlled breeding programs
to supply the tourist industry.
This has set alarm bells ringing
for naturalists across the world
who have begun intensive campaigns
to raise international awareness of the situation.
- And I think if population growth continues
in the world over the long run,
there won't be space left for large predators, I think.
If we as a human species continue to reproduce
at the rate we are doing,
we will not be able to save enough areas for wildlife.
That is the sad reality.
- The big question is, how do we manage
coexistence in the future?
To avoid that these animals will only persist in captive
scenarios or in very small government parks.
- This is the struggle.
If the youth of tomorrow prefers to do PlayStation
and sit on the internet and Facebook
and doesn't understand how we heal
and how we survive by being in nature,
how nature keeps us balanced, how we need nature.
If the generations that are coming are not aware
of how nature is being destroyed, there will be no nature.
- [Narrator] The plight of the big cats
has been ignored by most of the world's major
media organizations.
Governments and society have neither the time
nor the desire to tackle problems that are not regarded
as high priorities compared to issues such as
economic growth or public health.
No one dares to equate the decline in wildlife
with problems of a social or political nature.
Meanwhile, one of the animals that have suffered
most persecution at the hands of humans
all over the planet is the leopard.
It is highly prized by poachers for its skin.
It is the big cat with the worst reputation among farmers
because of it's predatory instincts
and it's elusive nature.
The leopard, until relatively recently
to be found across Africa, the Arabian Peninsula,
and Asia, adapting to any habitat except the desert
is now subject to constant harassment.
There is no reliable data on it's current population,
but a rough estimate suggests that there are
100,000 individuals across the world,
more than half of them on the African continent.
Research has shown that leopard population density
has fallen dramatically in recent years.
Some leopard subspecies, such as the snow leopard
or the Amur leopard, are critically endangered.
And others, such as the Zanzibar leopard,
are already extinct.
The great hunter, the most agile, powerful,
and beautiful feline is reduced to pleading for mercy
from it's main enemy, man.
At the beginning of the 20th century,
few of the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa
were agriculturalists.
They lived by hunting.
And the forests and the savannas
were an endlessly replenished food store.
Africans saw leopards as powerful neighbors.
They admired their elegance and their skill as hunters.
But their presence was also seen as a threat,
and worse, as competition.
While men were armed only with spears,
the big cats were at a disadvantage
but not endangered.
With the advent of firearms, this relationship changed.
Leopards began to be exterminated
and their habitats were reduced to uninhabited areas
in central and southern Africa
where their numbers continued to fall.
The slaughter intensified between the 1960s
and the 1990s when big game hunting
became a popular pastime amongst
wealthy North American and European families.
Attracted by the excitement of killing a wild animal,
whether it was lion, a leopard, an antelope,
a buffalo, or an elephant.
Poaching further accelerated the leopard's decline.
Their heads, skins, paws, tails, and teeth
filled the trophy rooms of hunters
who claimed that leopard hunting was a challenge.
One hunter measuring his strength against another.
But this idea of a contest between equals
was a flagrant misrepresentation of the reality.
A leopard's weapons, it's teeth and claw although powerful,
are not match for a rifle bullet.
From the 1990s onwards, many African countries
began to realize the extent of the killing
and enacted laws to protect wildlife,
limited legal hunting, and working to prevent poaching.
The slaughter of big cats has been curbed,
but continues unofficially
because whenever a new village, town, or small farmstead
is built, leopards are faced with a possible dilemma,
The destruction of their habitat
and the loss of their prey
forces them to look for food wherever they can.
Attacking chickens, dogs, or a village's livestock.
When this happens, the leopard is signing it's own
death sentence.
A conservation community wants to overturn
these prejudices against big cats.
For Natasha De Woronin, Director of the Global
Leopard Project, the biggest threat to the leopard
is ignorance and unfounded fear.
She has been studying leopard behavior for many years
and considers them to be the most fascinating
big cats of all.
We accompanied her to spend a whole day observing
a female leopard fitted with a tracking collar.
She gave us her perspective on the issue of conflict
between leopards and humans.
- The leopards and people live very, very closely.
So, where you've got farmlands
which is a big part of Africa still,
leopards are naturally part of those farms.
And if the wildlife is removed from the farms,
leopards naturally are gonna' start taking
the next easiest prey, which is very often
the livestock that the farmers are trying to farm.
You can't explain to a leopard, "You can't eat that."
And so there needs to be a relationship both
between these two creatures that they can live
together in harmony.
And a leopard that eats livestock,
a farmers not a horrible man at all.
He doesn't say, "Shoot the leopard,"
because he wants to.
He's a farmer because he probably loves wildlife,
he loves animals, and he doesn't want his animals
to get killed by another predator.
- [Narrator] Thanks to the tracking collar,
we're confident of finding the leopard
within a couple of hours at the most.
During the journey, we have to stop several times
to pick up the signal transmitted by the collar,
and so draw in ever so closer to our target.
The radio is not picking up a signal yet.
We'll just have to drive a little further and keep trying.
This time, we're in luck.
The radio picks up some weak beeps
which indicate that the leopard could be within
a radius of five kilometers.
We'll have to try again later.
The use of radio collars to monitor and track predators
is becoming more and more widespread.
This not only makes it easier to gather accurate
information about their habits,
but also to locate them quickly
so that visitors of the park can film or photograph them.
The beeps are getting stronger.
We're heading in the right direction.
If we're lucky and the leopard is resting,
we'll be able to get up close very quickly.
If she's on the move, things will be more complicated.
The beeps are getting stronger.
We are now within 50 meters.
At last we find her.
She's a six year old female
that Natasha has named, Honey.
She has a one year old cub.
The cub is not at her side and this seems
to be worrying her.
She is not afraid of us, but she is concerned about her cub.
Her instinct tells her to warn the cub
that there's an intruder on the territory.
She finds an elevated viewpoint
from where she can watch us and protect her cub.
It's impossible to interpret the language of her roars,
but she seems to be calling her cub,
telling him to make his way to a safe place
far away from us, as carefully as possible.
In all probability, the cub has heard the warning
and is only a few meters away, but he does not respond.
Perhaps because he's frightened of us.
This worries his mother.
Female leopards who have given birth
deliberately avoid males and other feline
competitors seeking out a safe territory
where they can raise their young.
Caring for her cubs keeps a female active
almost all day without time to rest.
She must find them food, teaching them to hunt,
and to recognize possible threats.
Natasha knows Honey well.
She's been studying her for years
and knows she's a sensible and experienced mother.
- I think with leopards, probably the most important
thing is to act like a leopard.
You have to act elusive and very calm and so on.
And we've seen she's not running away from us.
In fact what she's done is, she's charged us a few times
because she's very protective.
I think it's a hormonal thing.
We haven't proven as yet, but I think when leopards
have got cubs, for all predators it's the point
which they're the most dangerous
because they're trying to protect those youngsters.
They'll literally protect them with their life.
She had a territory right next door to where we are.
She gave birth to the cubs,
and what she did was she gave her daughter
a piece of the territory where she grew up.
So from where she was born, that was the piece of territory
she gave this daughter.
So wondering how she knows the territory so well,
she was born here.
She's been here since the very beginning.
She knows exactly where to go to hide.
She knows where to go and find where the springbok
are hanging around, or the warthogs for food.
She knows every little tree, crack,
if she needs water she knows where to go.
And the reason she knows it so well
is she's been here since the day she's been born.
She definitely recognizes people's faces.
She knows if there's someone new around,
she knows if it's me.
It's quite interesting and you can see it in her behavior.
They come close to the vehicle
and they have a look and they'll decide,
"All right, there's nothing dangerous,
"nothing to worry about," and then they'll walk past.
On other occasions, they'll look at the vehicle and say,
"There's something they don't like,"
and so they'll avoid it.
It's very difficult to, especially in a research situation
to put a personality to each animal,
but just like we've got personalities,
they've got personalities.
- [Narrator] After a long wait
with no sign of the cub, we decide to leave
and try again later.
This environment is a paradise
for many species of wildlife and for leopards too.
Prey is abundant and there are plenty of hideaways
where they can live their solitary and secretive lives.
In this wildlife reserve in northern Namibia,
the need to compete with other carnivores
is compensated by the wide range of the animals
that make up the leopard's preferred diet.
Zebra, oryx, kudu, springbok,
hartebeest, and wildebeest.
In fact, leopards will eat any kind of protein,
from mice to baboons.
We decide to resume our search for Honey,
the mother leopard, hoping that this time
we'll be lucky enough to see her with her cub.
We find her in an area of dense vegetation.
Over the course of an hour, this is our only glimpse
when she deliberately breaks cover.
Displaying her great intelligence,
she attracts our attention to let her cub
creep away unseen.
Her strategy of distracting us works like a dream.
Now that the cub has given us the slip,
the mother leaves too.
They will meet up again somewhere far from the cameras.
Leopards usually spend two nights in the same place,
so we hope to see her again tomorrow.
In the morning, our lenses penetrate an intricate fence
of branches, and we're finally able to film the cub.
Later, the mother leopard plays another of her tricks on us
diverting our attention from the cub.
Moving about restlessly, turning her back on us,
distracting us, all the while checking up on us
with furtive glances.
Finally tired of this game,
she decides to play a different one, hunting.
She allows us to follow her,
but she wants us to keep our distance.
The leopard is the quintessential
ambush and stalking predator.
Although she sometimes seems distracted
all her senses are focused, ready to analyze
any smell, sound, or movement that catches her attention.
(dramatic music)
Wherever she goes, she likes to leave her mark,
rubbing against the trunks of trees
or marking them with urine.
She never loses sight of us.
She accepts that we're following her.
She knows where we are and what we're doing at all times.
And monitors all our movements.
Suddenly, she picks up the pace.
She seems to be drawn to something we can't see
and we lose sight of her for several minutes.
We manage to catch up with her,
only to find her with a kill in her jaws.
In those few seconds, she caught a small warthog.
Now she really will disappear.
She made the kill only a few meters from us
and from several other animals,
which remained blissfully unaware.
Her stealth and skill are unparalleled.
The leopard is the big cat many would like to own as a pet.
In popular imagination, it is the feline that most closely
resembles the familiar domestic cats.
Observed at close quarters,
it reveals it's playful personality.
Leopards can live up to 15 years of age.
They're a solitary animal, hunting on home range
of 10 to 15 square kilometers
and only occasionally emerging from their isolation to mate.
Adult males can weigh up to 70 kilos
while females, around 60.
Females have gestation period of 90 to 105 days
and normally give birth to litter of two or three cubs
which they care for until they can fend for themselves.
Leopards, unlike lions and cheetahs, are solitary creatures.
- Leopard are very, very solitary as a predator.
Cheetah is a little bit more social
in tolerating other cheetahs within it's own range
and in terms with communicating with other cheetahs
frequently and meeting them.
It is effectively a more social
large cat than than the leopard is.
And the leopard is the most solitary of all of them.
That defines that they hunt alone
and they have to remain their territory alone.
They don't really tolerate any other predators
of the same species within their range.
A leopard male will cover for females,
but the females within each other, they don't tolerate.
They have very clear boundaries
between their ranges.
- [Narrator] Nevertheless, they can be as curious
as any other animal.
This female is completely relaxed
and in these conditions, it can let itself go
without any of it's usual wariness.
She rubs, scratches, and tickles herself
just like a domestic cat playing on the dinning room floor.
This leopard has a vast dinning room in which to play.
She feels completely safe within her territory.
Although from time to time, she turns her eyes and ears
towards any suspicious sounds made as they move around
or by our camera, about which she feels very curious.
All felines are incredibly inquisitive.
Just leave a camera on it's tripod,
an unfamiliar object in the natural environment
and comical scenes ensue.
This lion examines this unfamiliar object closely
wondering what on earth it could be.
At the same time, he's careful not to touch it.
Curiosity isn't the exclusive preserve of the felines
as demonstrated by this miniature camera,
the size of a matchbox, hanging from the top of a tree.
We weren't expected anything as tall as a giraffe
to discover it.
It's amazing how many different reactions
a camera can provoke.
The leopard we're watching is not afraid of anything.
She smears grass and branches with the scent of her coat
and marks trees and bushes.
She may be in heat, leaving her visiting card
in the hope a male will read the signs.
We have just seen one of the most intimate moments
it is possible to experience with a leopard in the wild.
For centuries, African wildlife was thought
to be inexhaustible.
Life was abundant and constantly replenished
and both humans and animals had a role to play
within the delicately balanced tapestry of nature.
This equilibrium was shattered
with the arrival of the European powers,
suddenly propelling Africa into the colonial
and post colonial eras.
Since then, natural harmony has been destroyed
with jaw dropping speed.
There are very few remote, isolated areas left
where wildlife is not at the mercy of human impulses.
Most animals know this and adjust to their new circumstances
with a greater or lesser success.
The animal that shows no sign of adapting is the leopard.
Night in the African wilderness
still belongs to the leopard, the great hunter.
This adds to it's mythical status
and sometimes works against it.
- Now you get to your leopard,
it's a completely different species.
Solitary animal, very seldom seen.
In fact, when I worked in the conservancies
and you speak to the conservancy farmers,
they seldom see leopard
because they mainly move around at night
and being a solitary animal
and they are just exceptional, exceptional animals.
And exceptionally clever and clever hunters as well.
They have an element of surprise
and that's normally, they would be on the periphery
of a herd and they would charge in,
grab an individual, and off with it,
and the herd would probably go on.
So, the idea is that while leopard is feared,
but humans do not see leopards that often.
And leopards are generally, they fear humans
so that sort of the human issues
in this element, in this conflict
is not really that bad because
they live up in the mountains.
Obviously if you're climbing the mountains
and you happen to frighten the leopard
while it's sleeping or in a cave or something like that,
obviously you're in trouble.
But generally speaking, the leopard stays away
from human habitation and takes the individual animal.
- [Narrator] Many farmers appreciate the leopard's
skill as a hunter, but know that in the long term
it will become a problem unless tackled.
Trapping leopards is a challenge
which can turn into an obsession.
- The problem with the leopard is
if there is not enough food for them,
they will start to go into the calves.
The other thing is, the calf is a very easy catch
for them as a wild animal.
A wild animal is more alert than
a domesticated calf, you can say.
And that's why leopards will go onto those calves,
because of the easiness.
Yeah, you can say we try to live together
with the leopards here.
We have to live together with them.
They are here in our felt environment
so you don't see them often
because it's a very shy animal.
What we are also trying to do,
if there's an animal or a calf has been caught
by a leopard, that we try to catch that leopard with a cage
to relocate that animal.
Because if a leopard catches a calf,
he normally comes back to his prey
so you know which one is the problem animal.
Taking him out of that environment
and relocating him somewhere else,
you get a space in the, or with your losses,
haven't got so much problems anymore.
- [Narrator] But most farmers make no effort
to trap leopards or transport them to parks
or protected areas.
They simply kill them.
Farmers will tolerate zebras, oryx, kudus,
or other herbivores on their land, but not predators.
We traveled to the home of the Africat Foundation
in Okonjimao, Namibia.
This reserve created in 1992 is dedicated
to ecotourism and research into wild animals.
And it's home to hundreds of big cats
that have been trapped, wounded, or abandoned.
Africats started out as a small family cattle farm.
- So, my dad was farming on Okonjimao with cattle
and he was losing between 15, 20 calves a year
to the leopard.
And he did what all farmers did.
He shot and he killed and he set traps
and it didn't really help and it didn't really
have any positive effect.
In fact, it sometimes was even,
it got worse after he killed a leopard
or after he confiscated the leopard out of the area.
It got worse.
So he started doing very simple research
as a simple man, a simple farmer trying to understand
this enemy instead of just killing and doing
whatever everyone else did.
- [Narrator] The Hanssen's father had struggled
with leopards for many years.
He hunted them like any other farmer
until he came to see that they too needed a home
and his outlook changed.
His children grew up to be passionate conservationists
who promote ways of defending farms from big cats
rather than killing them.
- To protect your livestock from leopard
is like a easier, first of all they're solitary animals,
they're not that many of them around at one time,
and they normally just take an animal and then
you don't see them again.
So, there is basically protect your smaller animals
from them, although leopards and cheetah are know
to take large, you know, large cattle.
But generally speaking, your small animals,
your craws do not need to be that high,
but they need to be strong.
And generally a guard dog with your livestock
and a human can generally work wonders
by keeping these animals away from your herds.
- [Narrator] The best way to avoid the extermination
of the leopard is to show landowners
how to live with them and reap the rewards.
Many visitors are prepared to pay large sums of money
just to photograph a leopard in the wild.
This is the model promoted by many conservation groups
which raise funds through ecotourism.
- I think longterm, at this way it's going to lead
to conservation, it's going to lead to that
because people will only tolerate predators,
like Namibia, they will tolerate a predator
if they can get an income from them.
For our instance, the leopards.
Leopards eat a lot of Kudu, and a lot of oryx and zebra
which cost money theoretically to us,
but they money they generate from tourism
which the guests can actually come and see them
which is really rare, that makes the balance equal,
if you know what I mean.
If I, for instance, on a farm.
If a farmer can realize that he can take foreign tourists
to see a leopard on his farm, he will actually make
a lot of money rather than just shooting that leopard.
'Cause he'll shoot the leopard once and he'll make
say 10,000 US dollars
because that's what he'll get from leopard.
But if that leopard lives for 10 years on his farm,
he will maybe take 1000 people seeing that leopard,
he'll make a million dollars out of that leopard
in the long term.
- [Narrator] The leopard has always been
the star attraction on any safari.
The most difficult feline to spot in the wild.
The cat whose coat is most highly prized by hunters.
The decline in big game hunting means
wild leopards can breath a sigh of relief.
Their prey, however, can not.
A leopard spreads fear wherever it goes.
Even when it's simply taking a stroll.
The hunting instinct soon kicks in again.
The prints are of other leopards that passed by
and of tempting prey.
She picks up the pace.
Leaving the river behind,
she plunges into the tall grass.
There's no way of seeing what is up ahead
so she relies on her acute sense of hearing.
She knows perfectly well what lies on the other side.
The head of the family of warthogs senses danger
and prepares to face it,
but hasn't seen the leopard to his right
which turns to attack the females and the piglets
left unprotected by the male.
The leopard moves fast.
She exploits the distance between
the large male and his family to kill a piglet.
The male will not reach her in time to stop her.
The leopard has proved itself a master of hunting tactics
and she has taken a fine prize
which she will enjoy at her leisure for at least two hours.
After her apparently interminable feast,
she surprises us again.
She climbs to the top of a tree to call her cub,
a young male around two years old.
She is not afraid of us,
but she is on the lookout for any threat to her cub,
especially lions and hyenas, a leopards principal enemies.
This is why she moves from side to side
ensuring there is no danger in the vicinity.
Again she calls to the cub.
She seems to be telling him the coast is clear,
but he seems to say he's not convinced.
The mother is happy to wait.
When it is clear the cub won't climb the tree,
the mother finally comes down.
They walk together.
The mother leads the way and the cub follows.
For an extended period, mother and cub
exchange gestures, growls, silences, and eye contact
in a private language that is impenetrable to us.
As they travel, they communicate.
Catching up on the news just like two people
who haven't seen each other for some time
until the conversation ends
and they go their separate ways.
Today we discovered a fascinating thing.
The leopards incredible ability to interpret nature,
far better than any human being.
(whistles)
The wild African cat that looks most
like a domestic cat is the caracal.
- So we walk 'em and then you see that they don't
want to the farm.
Normally they stay out, the females especially,
they stay out for...
(laughs)
- [Narrator] The lynx-like caracal looks docile
and submissive, but the reality is different.
It could never get used to life in a Manhattan apartment.
Marlice Van Vuuren is a well known Namibian conservationist
and all authority on big cats.
According to Marlice, the big cats most characteristic
trait is the desire for freedom
and they can be very aggressive in seeking it.
And among the felines, the leopard is the one
that fights hardest.
I think if you look at Namibia, I'm speaking about Namibia
because most of my experience is in Namibia.
Leopards is the one animal that you can find still
from the south of Namibia up to the east, north,
up to as far as west as they can possibly go.
And I think the reason for leopards to survive
is they're fighters and they have the personalities of cats.
Cats will go off and catch a mouse
if you don't give 'em food.
And they bounce back, they take the conflict,
they always bounce back and they're fighters.
So, I think that's the reason why leopards,
and they're very clever, so they outthink.
They're always a step ahead.
If you also hunt leopards, you have to watch your back.
They walk in circles.
So, it's not just tracking a leopard and kill it,
you have to be wake up.
You can't just take it for granted.
You will be killed.
- [Narrator] Sadly, their hunting instincts
will be inhibited further in the future
and they will have to adapt to life behind bars
even when they enclose such wide open areas as this one
and despite the stress that this can cause them.
- The question is how you handle predators in captivity.
It starts with the size of enclosure you provide them.
The larger your enclosure, obviously, the less contact
you will have with that predator
because they're naturally avoiding human contact.
For ambassador animals that are often
for example injured,
human contact is often maintained
to keep them in a tame or semi-tame state
and that will reduce stress
because the animal will get habituated to that
type of contact.
In cases for releasable animals,
you want to minimize human contact
to a point where you don't actually have
any contact with that animal and you want to provide them
with the largest possible area in captivity.
So they can still exercise their ecology
as much as possible, although in a limited area,
but also to not get habituated
and to not experience stress from human contact.
To my understanding, to reduce stress
and to maintain health, mental and physical health,
the less handling, the less management the better.
- [Narrator] This pair of leopards wait anxiously
for their keepers to bring them their daily meal
which is usually pieces of animal or wild ass.
- Now that is what I call good throwing.
Did you see that?
There is the meat on the, I put it there.
- [Narrator] Life behind a fence
inevitably means the leopard is trapped
in an enclosed area from which animals
which would naturally be it's prey are excluded.
Instead, the leopards must be brought food.
Living in captivity makes them totally dependent on humans.
- We need to attach values to those animals
through tourism, maybe even through trophy hunting.
It's debatable whether that's a good technique
or bad technique.
But it has shown that for wildlife,
that people are willing to tolerate wildlife
that creates value and that has value
through any form of utilization.
And that's underdeveloped at the moment
specifically for the carnivores thinking of ecotourism
or research based tourism opportunities
because they are charismatic predators.
People like to see them and people
will want to see them in the future in this country.
- [Narrator] The leopard is a fascinating animal.
It is the stealthiest, most daring, intelligent,
and independent of the big cats.
It's self sufficiency and adaptability
enable it to live in places where other predators
could never survive.
Leopard numbers are falling fast,
but despite predictions of it's imminent extinction,
it is holding on better than lions and cheetahs
thanks to it's finely honed survival instincts
which drive it to find habitats
that are as far as possible from civilization.
Only a few years ago, this solitary big cat
was the most highly prized hunting trophy.
Now luckily for the leopard, locals and tourists
have swapped their rifles for cameras.
And if the king of the jungle, the lion,
is the star of the photo albums,
the leopard comes a close second.
The leopard represents the spirit of wild nature,
but is now subordinated to the power of man.
- Man has the power to create beauty
Man has the power to protect.
Man has the power to destroy.
But the Red Indians said thousands of years ago
said that if man destroys nature,
if man destroys the animal, we are next to go.
You know?
So I truly think that if we lose this balance,
we're in trouble.
And if we're intelligent enough to create the iPad
or flight to the moon, or discover water on Mars,
why can't we find a way to protect our planet?
You know, the place where we live.
The place where we keep our stuff
as they love saying.
It's crazy, it makes no sense.
(dramatic music)
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