This assignment required me to create an inquiry action project by focusing on how similar or dissimilar are the human posed threats faced across all seven large bodied cat species based on data from the large non-governmental organizations. The action component of this project was a social media campaign where for two months I posted daily on Instagram with a collaborating blog and website that shared information about big cats, the threats they face and what solutions people can participate in to help take action to protect these cat species.
This was created for my Earth Expedition: Inquiry and Action course in Fall 2020.
Abstract
This project questions how similar or dissimilar are the human posed threats faced across all seven large bodied cat species based on data from the large non-governmental organizations. The study looks at tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars, pumas, cheetahs, and snow leopards through a google search to find cat specific and wildlife specific conservation organizations and reviewing their work to see what they claim is the biggest threat these cats face. An excel sheet was created to keep all relevant information organization by cat species and other crucial sections. Poaching is the biggest threat to tigers, lions and snow leopards while habitat loss is the biggest threat to jaguars, pumas, cheetahs, and leopards. The two largest cats and a sister species had poaching as the largest threat, while other cat species, the cat species closer in size, had habitat loss as their main threat.
Keywords: Big cat conservation, threats, conflicts, solutions, big cats
Introduction
There are seven large bodied extant cats (Turner, 1997). For the purpose of this paper and project the seven large bodied cats will be referred to as big cats from here on out. The seven big cats are the tiger, lion, leopard, jaguar, puma, cheetah and snow leopard. Out of these seven, five are in trouble, in terms of their conservation status, with another one heading towards trouble. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is the world’s most comprehensive source of information on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus, and plant species (IUCN Background, 2020). Although the IUCN Red List is not always up to date they are still a reliable source for how species are doing across their range, however, some populations may face more serious concerns in specific locations of their total range. As of August 2020, the IUCN Red List labels jaguars as near threatened and pumas as least concern (IUCN Jaguar, 2020; IUCN Puma, 2020). Lions, leopards, cheetahs and snow leopards are listed as vulnerable under the IUCN Red List (IUCN Cheetah, 2020; Leopard, 2020; IUCN Lion, 2020; IUCN Snow leopard, 2020). Tigers are the only big cat listed under the IUCN Red List as endangered (IUCN Tigers, 2020).
Human behavior is driving ecosystem and species decline (Cowling, 2014; Inskip, et al., 2014; Verissimo, 2013). These apex predators play a very important role because as carnivore populations decrease the ecosystem in which they are in begin to function differently and are not as resiliente to becoming increasingly compromised (Inskip, et al., 2014). It is no secret that humans are altering, affecting and impacting every aspect of nature. From poaching to climate change humans have made an impact, and not always for the best. In California alone between 95% and 97% of fires are human caused (Syphard et al., 2007; Balch et al., 2017). As of October 5, 2020 California has had 8,320 wildfires resulting in an estimated 4,040,935 acres burned just this year, and the fire season has not even started yet (CalFire Incident Archive, 2020). One study believes that climate change and human-caused mortality of carnivores is the most significant anthropogenic impact on nature (Inskip, et al., 2014; Ripple, et al., 2014). Wildfires can change the landscape, vegetation and the connectivity between habitats (Engstrom, 2010). Wildlife can have burned paws from wildfires, loss of habitat, loss of prey, loss of water, and can cause injury or death among wildlife.
My master plan focuses on big cat conservation through mitigation of human-big cat conflict. My mission is to drive action to further conservation to ensure human and big cat coexistence, while my vision is big cat conservation through public collaboration, environmental education, and biodiversity preservation. My passion is to mitigate human-big cat conflict. I want to end, or at least decrease, human-big cat conflict! Human-big cat conflict negatively impacts big cat populations worldwide, which trickles down the food chain and spreads problems through the environment. Dr. Jane Goodall’s quote, “what you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make” really impacted me. I have decided I want to make a difference for the big cats and ensure their survival in the wild while using conservation messaging through accredited zoos.
This project has allowed me to focus on a comparative research question. My question is, how similar or dissimilar are the human posed threats faced across all seven large bodied cat species based on data from the large non-governmental organizations? By focusing on big cat organizations it will be clear as to which conflicts they deem most important and to see if these big cat organizations agree on what the biggest threat is facing the different big cat species.
Methods
To find how similar or dissimilar the threats facing the big bodied cat species are a google search was conducted to research different big cat organizations. The organizations were found through a generic google search, knowledge of certain organizations and through organizations that had partnerships and collaborations with other organizations I found through the google search. The most common keywords used to search were “big cat organizations”, “big cats”, “big cat conservation”, and “big cat conservation organizations”. Once organizations were found a look through their website was done to see if there was any partnership or collaboration done with similar organizations that could be beneficial to this project. The big cat organizations consisted of organizations that focus on specifically one or two big cats and organizations that focus on all felines and all wildlife. This variety of organizations allowed a full comprehensive view of how different organizations that focus on wildlife, felines and individual big cats compare to one another. Specific big cat species organizations were researched as well as multiple big cat species organizations. Some big cat species, like leopards, did not have a lot of single cat species organizations, which shows how important it is that conservation efforts towards that species is since there is not a lot of focus. In order to keep track of the different organizations that were researched, an excel sheet was created. The excel sheet took note of the name of the organization, what cat species they focus on, their website link, their mission, the projects they are working on, their point of contact and any other important information that would benefit this project. This excel sheet had all the different organizations and became the master list that assisted in creating other excel sheets, in total twelve excel sheets were created.
Image shows the information that was collected during research
In addition to the master list, there were seven excel sheets where each list focused on one specific big cat species. Another excel sheet focused on feline only organizations, but focused on more than one cat species. An excel sheet keeping track of the mixed organizations, organizations that focused on more than one feline or wildlife in general, and what they claimed to be the biggest threat or human-wildlife conflict was. I gathered what the organization claimed was the biggest threat facing the big cats, either from direct wording or wording where it is assumed the threats were having the biggest impact on the big cats. There was one excel sheet of sources labeled ‘other sources’ that could have been helpful but was not the most important piece of information at the time, but was kept in case their importance increased. Finally there was an excel sheet that focused on their International Union for Conservation Nature’s (IUCN) Red List statues with the estimated number of the cat’s populations, what the IUCN claimed to be the biggest threat or conflict and when that data was published.
The excel sheets were color coded and each cat species received their own color, so it was clearly identified what cat species was involved on each tab of the excel sheet. Tigers were orange, lions were yellow, leopards were pink, jaguars were green, pumas were blue, cheetahs were red and snow leopards were purple. Each tab or excel sheet listed the organizations in alphabetical order, with the exception of the IUCN tab. The IUCN tab and the order of the tabs went by the size of the cat. From largest to smallest there were tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars, pumas, cheetahs, and snow leopards. Ordering them by size seemed like the best method to determine the similarities and differences between cat species size. Several pieces of misinformation led to the belief that leopards were taller than jaguars, which would be considered as bigger for this project, so leopards were placed before jaguars. Information found later deemed that jaguars should have been placed before leopards, but by the time this was learned both leopard and jaguar action pieces were either in progress or already completed. Due to this it was decided it was best to leave everything as is and explain these findings if questions arose, it was also mentioned in one of the jaguar action pieces that jaguars are in fact larger than leopards in all aspects and should have been placed before leopards.
You can view the IAP- Big Cat Organizations excel sheets. The excel sheets are all on one main document with different tabs for each individual excel sheet. A screenshot of the master list of organizations is shown in Appendix A.
The action component consisted of taking the information from the excel sheets and elaborating on the information. The first part of the action component was the creation of an Instagram account, @big_cat_conservation .
Instagram Account Posts
This account is public so anyone can view it. The hashtag #BigCatConservation was used first in every posting to have this project as the focal point. The second action component was a blog posting on the Big Cat Conservation website.
Website Blog Postings
Each blog post focused on one of the big cats and a threat or solution. Once the blog post was posted every morning, a brief summary was posted on Instagram. The Instagram account was a brief summary to cut down on words, while the blog posting was able to go into more detail, and share links and videos to more information. Every Instagram posting invited people to visit the blog and website to learn more, and the website link was posted in the bio section of the Instagram account. On every page the website shared a video, links, conservation organizations and action components that anyone can do.
Big Cat Conservation Website Page
Results
This study takes a qualitative approach by looking at patterns in terms of threats and how they relate to the different big cat species. The results were interesting for this project. The seven tiger conservation organizations agreed that poaching was the biggest threat impacting the tiger population, while the six cheetah conservation organizations agreed that habitat loss was the biggest threat facing cheetahs. The five majority of puma conservation organizations and three jaguar conservation organizations agreed that habitat loss was the biggest threat impacting pumas and jaguars, while the four majority of snow leopard conservation organizations agreed poaching is the biggest threat impacting snow leopard populations. Both lions and leopards have a limited number of conservation organizations, four and two respectively, and they vary in what they believe is the biggest threat, outside of agreeing human impact is the biggest threat. The image below is a mind map showing the biggest threats to each of the big cats. It shows that all big cat species' biggest threat is anthropogenic and then breaks off into direct killings of the big cats or habitat loss.
Story-map image shows a story-map of the biggest threats that impact the big cats
Wildlife conservation organizations seemed to follow the same pattern as the big cat species specific conservation organizations in terms of what they claim is the biggest threat facing the big cats. All but one wildlife conservation organization, out of seven, agreed that poaching is the biggest threat to tigers while cheetahs biggest threat is habitat loss, according to three wildlife conservation organizations. Pumas and jaguars both have habitat loss as their biggest threat according to the majority of, two and five respectively, wildlife conservation organizations. Similar to the snow leopard conservation organizations, two wildlife conservation organizations also claim poaching is the biggest threat to snow leopards. Wildlife conservation organizations have mixed claims about the biggest threats to lions and leopards, however killing lions either from direct killings or retaliatory killings are the majority biggest threat, according to four wildlife conservation organizations. Wildlife conservation organizations agree that habitat loss is a major threat to leopards, but it is not clear if they believe this is the biggest threat to leopards, three wildlife conservation organizations agree to this statement.
It is interesting how the biggest big cat, the tiger, and the fastest big cat, the cheetah, conservation organizations and wildlife conservation organizations are firm in their claims to what the biggest threats are to these two cats. It is intriguing to see that pumas have habitat loss as their biggest threat, but the majority of people think wildlife is ‘not in their backyard’ and it is someone else’s problem somewhere else, yet our wildlife in America, like the puma, is being affected by our own actions. This is clear by the fact the biggest threat facing jaguars is also habitat loss and they are hardly found in the United States, if there are any left (Panthera Jaguar, 2020). The mountain ghost snow leopard is difficult to find in the wild, yet poaching is their biggest threat, agreed on by both snow leopard and wildlife conservation organizations. While the elusive leopards and lions are unknown in what the biggest threat is from lion, leopard, and wildlife conservation organizations. Both leopards and lions have the majority of their populations in Africa with sub populations in Asia (Panthera Leopard Panthera pardus, 2020; Panthera Lion: Panthera leo, 2020).
Discussion
The data from this project explains that for some big cat species it is very clear to know what threat has the biggest impact while other big cat species it is harder to determine what their biggest threat is. The reasons for this are unknown, but we can speculate some reasons for the inconsistencies.
Tigers are the largest cat in the world and they have the smallest known population size in the wild (IUCN Tiger, 2020). The human-tiger conflict is a growing issue in areas where humans and tigers struggle to coexist. According to the seven tiger and seven wildlife conservation organizations the top five biggest threats, in order from biggest to least big, for tigers are poaching, habitat loss, prey loss, climate change, and the illegal pet trade. It may be easy to determine tiger threats because they are the biggest cat or because their population is the smallest known, or it could be for another reason entirely.
Cheetahs are the fastest land animal in the world, yet they can’t outrun their growing threats and shrinking population (IUCN Cheetah, 2020; Sjogren, 2017). The six cheetah and five wildlife conservation organizations agree that the top four biggest threats facing cheetahs, in order from greatest threat to least threat, is habitat loss, poaching, prey loss, and the illegal pet trade. The illegal pet trade is an increasing threat to cheetahs and some people do not see the line between a pet and a wild animal, especially with growing use of social media (Bale, 2016; CCF Illegal Pet Trade, 2020). Unfortunately, since cheetahs are diurnal they are more visible to people and often blamed for livestock loss when they are not the culprit, and studies have shown livestock is less than 6% of a cheetahs diet (CCB About Cheetahs, 2020; Sjogren, 2017).
Pumas are the big cat known to the United States and Canada where about 4,000 pumas are killed each year (Panthera Puma, 2020). Since they have the largest geographic range of any native terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere, it is difficult for organizations to agree on their biggest threats because different areas have different threats (Panthera Puma, 2020). For the most part five of the six puma organizations and three wildlife conservation organizations agree that habitat loss is the pumas biggest threat, followed by poaching or trophy hunting, and prey loss. For this project habitat loss was looked at and then a special focus was placed on habitat loss caused by human caused wildfires. On average, human-caused wildfires cause 61,375 fires each year (NIFC, 2018). There is an average of 4.6 million acres burned annually by wildfires, with 55% of those being human-caused (Evans, 2018). As of November 19, 2020 California alone has seen 9,279 fires resulting in 4,197,628 acres burned (Cal Fire Incidents Overview, 2020). Losing this much habitat in a state where pumas are already facing other threats could be detrimental to their existence in California.
Jaguars are the largest threat in the western hemisphere, yet they are not big enough to scare away the threats they face. Similar to the puma, jaguars face the same type of threats and they are viewed in the same order by four jaguar organizations and seven wildlife conservation organizations. The biggest threat facing jaguars is habitat loss followed by poaching and prey loss. Just like with pumas, the jaguar habitat loss took a special look at habitat loss due to wildfires. By August of 2019 there were estimated to be around 76,000 fires burning across the Brazilian Amazon alone, this is an 80% increase of the same time period as the year before (Borunda, 2019). Most of the fires are human caused through deforestation (Borunda, 2019). In August 2020 there were 29,307 fires in the Brazilian Amazon (Pedroso, et al., 2020). Around this same time California had 900 wildfires in 22 days resulting in a total of two million acres being burned by September 2020 (Sanchez & Weber, 2020). The increase of wildfires around the world is showing how important it is to discuss climate change and the potential dangers it will have on the planet.
Snow leopards are known as the ‘mountain ghost’ because they are so elusive and mysterious (Panthera Snow Leopard, 2020). Four of the five snow leopard conservation organizations and five wildlife conservation organizations agree that poaching is the biggest threat impacting snow leopards, followed by prey loss, habitat loss, and climate change. Since they are so elusive and difficult to find in the wild it is surprising that poaching is their biggest threat, although poaching can occur by using traps as well. It is believed that between 221 and 450 snow leopards have been poached every year since 2008 (GSLEPP Poaching, 2019).
Lions are the second largest cat in the world and the only cats that live in a group, called a pride (Panthera Lion, 2020). There were a lot of different opinions on what the biggest threat to lions is but killing the lion in some way was the greatest threat. Three of the four lion conservation organizations and four of the five wildlife conservation organizations agreed with this statement. For the purposes of this project poaching consisted of poaching, trophy hunting, canned hunting, retaliatory killings, and preemptive killings. This grouping allowed for an agreement on killing lions as the greatest threat. After poaching the biggest threats were habitat loss, livestock conflicts, and the illegal wildlife trade of the bone trade and cub petting.
Leopards are considered the most elusive of all the big cats, and perhaps that is why there is no clear agreement on what the biggest threat is facing leopards (AWF Leopard, 2020). It was agreed that anthropogenic threats are the greatest threat to leopards, and then it becomes less clear as to what the next biggest threats are (IUCN Leopard, 2020). Another thing that cannot be agreed upon or is unknown is the population size of leopards which could aid in the lack of agreement of the biggest threat to leopards (IUCN Leopard, 2020). After anthropogenic threats, two leopard conservation organizations and seven wildlife conservation organizations claim that the remaining threats are habitat loss, poaching, and prey loss.
In terms of how similar or dissimilar the human posed threats across all seven large bodied cat species are, it varies. Tigers, lions and snow leopards all have poaching as their biggest threat. It is interesting because tigers and snow leopards are considered sister species (Davis, Li, & Murphy, 2010). Tigers and lions have the greatest relative brain size of all the cats (Turner, 1997). It is undetermined by this project if either of these facts play a role in why these three big cat species have poaching as their greatest threat. Jaguars, pumas, cheetahs, and leopards, all have habitat loss as their greatest threat, considering leopards second greatest threat for this situation. Lions, leopards, and jaguars are also considered sister species (Davis, Li, & Murphy, 2010). Lions and leopards are both mainly found in Africa (Panthera Leopard, 2020; Panthera Lion, 2020). Pumas are most closely related to the cheetah and are considered to be cousin species, with them splitting from each other between 3.5 to 4.9 million years ago (O’Brien & Johnson 2007; Turner, 1997). Pumas and jaguars both face the increasing threat of wildfires, particularly in Brazil and California (Bourunda, 2019; CalFire Incident Overview, 2020).
Action Component Summary
My project action component consisted of an Instagram page where a new conflict, solution and information was posted every day about a cat species. In conjunction with the Instagram posting there was a website that has information about each big cat and has a daily blog posting that relates to the Instagram posting of the day. The daily Instagram and blog postings slated for eight weeks, with the first seven weeks focusing on one specific big cat species and the last week focusing on all the big cat species. The first seven weeks allowed the reader to learn about one specific big cat species while the eight week focused on comparing the similarities and differences between the big cat species. The corresponding blog post allowed for more information to be posted and links to be shared so the reader can view more information and watch videos. You can view my Instagram Timeline Excel sheet in Appendix B.
Similar to the excel sheets, the website was set up to have a home page, big cat page, all seven big cats, the blog, and a page for all references that were used. This allowed the reader to go to a page focusing on a specific big cat or information on all big cats. Each page has information, videos and links for people to read more about the species or actions that they can do and share it with their friends. Each blog posting has multiple sources used to share the information and inform the reader of where the information came from. To date (November 18, 2020) there have been 56 Instagram posts, but only 55 were a part of this project, and 54 blog posts. The very first Instagram post was asking viewers to take the pledge to protect big cats and did not have a corresponding blog post. There are still three more Instagram posts and two more blog postings remaining. The last Instagram post for this project was on November 2, 2020. As of November 18, 2020 I had 1,049 likes on Instagram (1,078 including the post posted after this project ended), 90 followers, 51 blog readers and 320 visitors to my website. I do plan on still posting to the Instagram page and website periodically as new information arises or celebrations of that cat species are going on, like International Cheetah Day on December 4th.
While posting on Instagram and the blog I have been tagging and attaching links to other big cat organizations. I have also been sharing news and updates in my Instagram story which has received a few shares among conservation organizations. I have received a couple of comments and messages from organizations thanking me for raising their awareness. There have also been conversations in a couple postings about the information and the big cats.
Instagram Question and Conversation
Some organizations have reposted or shared my posts or stories.
You can follow the Instagram page at @big_cat_conservation
(https://www.instagram.com/big_cat_conservation/) and view my website Big Cat Conservation at https://reedtr6.wixsite.com/bigcatconservation .
Conclusion
This study shows that all the big bodied cats have humans as their number one threat, or anthropogenic threats. After that the two largest cats, tigers and lions, and the smallest big cat, the snow leopard, has poaching as their biggest threat. Habitat loss was the biggest threat for the remaining cats; cheetahs, jaguars, pumas, and leopards. It is interesting how humans have managed to kill these animals and the ones they don’t kill they steal their habitat. Humans must learn how to coexist with these animals, and through my Instagram postings, blogs, and website I do believe I was able to inform people and encourage them to make a change to help these cats.
Through my informative Instagram postings and blogs I was able to provide information about the cat, the threats they face, and actions people can take to help these cats. Misinformation or never being informed can affect how someone sees an animal species and if they take actions. My posts focused on sharing relevant and correct information with others in a way that the general public can understand it and share it with others. I kept terms simple or explained them so there was no disconnect between the general public thinking it was too scientific and chose not to read it.
This project can be grown in a few different ways. One way is to learn the reasons why the cat species have their biggest threat as their biggest threat. Another is to see if the information provided created a change in people or provided them with information they did not already know. Lastly this project can continue to focus on poaching and habitat loss with the large bodied cats to figure out why these two threats are the biggest threats to the cat species. Out of seven species only two threats have the most impact. It turns out the threats facing the seven large bodied cats are very similar according to large non-governmental organizations; poaching and habitat loss are the two main threats to focus on when considering conservation efforts with the large bodied cats.
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Appendix A
Master list excel sheet of all big cat organizations.
Appendix B
Instagram Timeline Excel Sheet
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