You might find it strange to hear from someone who promotes animal protection that animals don’t always need to be rescued — but that’s the harsh truth of life. It’s so harsh that most people are unable to see the line between right and wrong, because the feeling of compassion overpowers common sense…
As you know, I try to show you wildlife as it really is. In my publications, I regularly describe how the stronger ones oppress and kill the weaker ones. This is a natural process that cannot be changed — and most people understand this.
However, as soon as I tell a story about, say, lions or hyenas stealing food from a cheetah with cubs — or, even worse, about those same lions or hyenas killing the cubs — there are always people who accuse me of inaction. They say: “You’re the one preaching about protecting cheetahs, whose numbers are rapidly declining, but you haven’t lifted a finger to protect those poor cubs.”
And that’s exactly what I wanted to talk about today — to explain why I don’t do this (or do it, but in secret from my colleagues)…
I used to work as a ranger in a national park, and now I’m engaged in charity and educational activities. Most of my life has been connected with caring for wild animals — cheetahs in particular. I’ve witnessed large predators (and not only them) attacking cheetahs or other cubs on numerous occasions.
Each incident was unique, and here are a few examples:
- A pride of five adult lionesses caught the scent of a cheetah’s den where kittens had recently been born.
- Ele elephants were passing by and caught the scent of a lioness’s den with three tiny lion cubs.
- A female cheetah caught a gazelle and brought it to her cubs. Two hyenas picked up the scent of the fresh kill and followed it. For the cheetahs, this meant the risk of losing not only their food but also their lives.
Here’s how I handled these three situations:
- I naturally started the engine and tried to drive the lionesses away — but in doing so, I put myself in danger, didn’t actually help the cheetah, and may even have made things worse by disorienting the mother and her cubs with my unusual actions.
- In this case, there was simply no option. You can’t interfere with a group of elephants: their hatred of predators, combined with their size and strength, makes it impossible to stop them. I just observed what was happening — I couldn’t even take photos. It was just horrifying…
- Anticipating what would happen next, and considering that there were only two hyenas, I managed to drive them away. Fortunately, my actions didn’t disrupt the cheetah. However, she still abandoned the prey — the lives of her cubs are worth more than one dead gazelle.
In most cases, saving one wild animal from another requires the use of force. But as you’ve already understood, it’s not always possible to use force. Sometimes you need a team of rangers to drive the animals away. And how do you decide which animal is more valuable — a cheetah or a lion? Even hyenas need protection: they’re a crucial part of self‑regulation in the ecosystem.
I regularly tell you that there are so few cheetahs left that each one is worth its weight in gold. However, it’s physically impossible to assign a ranger team to every single cheetah. And what would happen to the species if it could only survive through personal protection? It would be simpler to move them all to a zoo right away. Therefore, this method of saving rare species is practically utopian.
When interfering with the processes of the wild, you must think carefully a hundred times, calculate everything, and weigh all the pros and cons. Smart and experienced people have done this thinking for me. And any intervention of mine — even something like what I described above — is more likely a sign of my weakness rather than actual help to nature.
There are many other ways to protect and preserve a species. Many cheetahs have died in the claws of lions — but that number is incomparable to how many have died at the hands of humans. And
that is where we need to focus our efforts…
