“We generally don’t wave cameras in front of animals. That is for TV personalities who want fame and reaction and usually get scratched as a result. We believe that when an animal sees and reacts to us, we have failed. Our ambition is to be invisible, wallpaper; to see, document, and be led into a magical world of acceptance. You only get this with respect and trust.”
Leopards are elusive, famously so, which is why the new documentary film from National Geographic Explorers-at-Large Beverly and Dereck Joubert is such a joy to behold — and a privilege to watch.
Monday marks the first day of NatGeo Wild’s “Big Cat Week” and the Jouberts’ film, Jade Eyed Leopard, kicks off a week of programming dedicated to raising awareness of the crisis that faces big cats worldwide.
The Jouberts followed a leopard cub, Toto, Swahili for “little child,” and her mother Fig over three years in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve. At the beginning of the film, Toto is tiny, high-energy, playful and blissfully unaware of the dangers that will face her during the weeks and months ahead. By the end of the program, as Toto defends a fresh kill against marauding hyenas, she is no longer a child but a fully grown female leopard, in the prime of her life.
The film is beautifully photographed, sharply edited and narrated by the English stage and screen actor Jeremy Irons, who has become the go-to narrator for the Jouberts’ growing library of high-end nature films — a Shakespearean voice set against the ever-shifting rhythms and tides of the natural world. There are times when Jade Eyed Leopard literally glows on the screen.
Jade Eyed Leopard is not all pretty pictures though, heartwarming and inspiring thought the story may be. Jade Eyed Leopard is intimate and personal, but it also speaks to a bigger picture. The Jouberts are first and foremost about conservation — that’s why they’re making films for National Geographic and PBS Nature, and not, say, Disney. The world’s last surviving big cats are in trouble, and the Jouberts want the world to know that. Dereck Joubert founded National Geographic’s Big Cat Initiative — the clue is in the name — in 2009 in a bid to stem the decline of big cats in the wild.
The facts are these. World lion populations have declined to 30,000 from 110,000 in just 50 years.
Over that same period, jaguar populations have crashed to 15,000 from 60,000, and tigers are down to a mere 3,200 from 45,000. Leopards, which numbered some 80,000 in 1970, today number some 23,000.
These are estimates only. As Jade Eyed Leopard shows, big cats — while playful, curious and high-energy when young — become shy, moody and reclusive in their later years. Leopards, jaguars and tigers are near impossible to count with any degree of certainty; lions are a little easier because they tend to frequent open grasslands, and are social animals that live in groups.
What is certain, though, and what matters today, regardless of the exact numbers, is that there are fewer big cats in the wild today than there used to be. If big cats vanish altogether, it will be an unsettling harbinger of things to come. One doesn’t need an advanced degree in the biosciences to know that apex predators such as lions, tigers and leopards play a critical role in a healthy ecosystem. They cull the weak, the injured and the sick among prey animals, prevent the spread of disease — including zoonotic viruses and their attendant pandemics — and, as nature’s guardians at the top of the food chain, they maintain the order of life.
Leopards face an uncertain future because of shrinking habitat, exacerbated by ever-growing farms, roads and development. Wildlife corridors — natural “highways” through which animals can safely migrate or disperse — are one possible solution, especially for an animal such as a leopard. Males have been known to roam 320 km (200 miles) at the outward extent of their natal range, but even then inbreeding among ever-dwindling populations is a problem. That’s why the Maasai Mara National Reserve, the northern extension of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, is so crucial to their survival. The Mara is still a place where open grasslands can sustain a viable population of predators, without the perils that inbreeding entails.
If you have access to NatGeo Wild, Jade Eyed Leopard is well worth a look. Monday, 8ET/7CT.
©Skeeze - Pixabay