“We can heal some of the harm we’ve inflicted.”
When in Africa, do as the Romans do. That, at least, was the way of the world until the animals started dying out, and the idea of Africa’s so-called “Big Five” of big animals became the focus of increased scrutiny.
The Big Five — and this is the part tourist guides in Africa seldom tell you — are not the five largest African mammals, as is widely assumed, but rather the five animals most difficult to hunt. That’s why the hippo and giraffe — “big” by anyone’s measure — were left out, and the cape buffalo and relatively small — though elusive and breathtakingly beautiful — leopard made the list.
With people’s horizons expanded in the new media age, and with wildlife photography going through a creative renaissance, thanks to digital technology and mirrorless cameras as quiet as a breeze through tall grass, the idea of hunting big game for the trophy wall has gone the way of black-and-white TV and printed morning newspapers.
Today, the very idea of shooting a buffalo and mounting its stuffed head on the den wall seems like a relic from a past age.
So now, a group of the world’s leading wildlife photographers, with the blessing of leading conservationists and field biologists like Jane Goodall, have proposed a new “Big 5” — the most cherished and representative iconic species to photograph, not just from Africa but from around the world.
The vote is by public acclimation and anyone can vote, by visiting https://www.newbig5.com and casting a ballot. The site has helpfully compiled a list of candidates — just tick the appropriate boxes — or you can make your own suggestion.
The site is no mere Twitter poll, though. The site features essays from many of the world’s leading nature photographers (Brent Stirton, Tom Mangelson, Ami Vitale, Tim Laman, Nick Brandt, Joel Sartore and others) and conservationists (Goodall, Iain Douglas-Hamilton), news, a lively podcast (hosted by UK project director and wildlife photographer Graeme Green and available on iTunes, among other services), interviews and photographers' galleries.
It’s exhaustive in scope, a life-affirming project that, to cite the project’s mission statement, doubles as a celebration of wildlife and wildlife photography and a gentle, show-don’t-tell reminder that we can indeed save the world’s wildlife provided we act now.
First, some back-story.
The original concept of the Big Five came out of Africa, an unnatural side effect of the big game hunting that drove early European explorations of the so-called Dark Continent, as mapmakers of the time liked to call it.
Africa was — and is — unique, in that it’s one of just two places on Earth (the other being southern Asia) that remains home to much of the world’s megafauna — the big animals — like elephant, lion, buffalo, rhino and leopard.
As palaeontologists, zoological archeologists and other earth scientists have warned, other continents had their own megafauna, but a
successive wave of mass extinctions over the past 50,000 years wiped out everything from mastodons and sabre-tooth cats to, in Australia’s case, echidnas the size of sheep, marsupial tapirs and giant, short-faced kangaroos.
Climate change and other natural causes were a major cause of these early mass extinctions, but as humanity developed it became clear that the more recent extinctions followed with the arrival of humans. That was no coincidence.
Today, right now, the survival of the natural world’s remaining iconic animals depends not on big-game hunting and those who would argue that hunting helps pay the bills for conservation (it doesn’t) but rather on ecotourism and wildlife photography.
Wildlife photography is critical to the 21st-century equation because it brings nature into the homes of those who, either through economic or practical circumstances, might otherwise never have the chance to see a lion or elephant in its natural environment. The best nature photography inspires and incentivizes us to get involved, whether it’s by private donation or simply living a greener, more environmentally friendly life, in order to help save what’s left.
The original Big Five is a throwback to a past era an era where Ernest Hemingway’s green hills of Africa were thick with game, but that era, like Hemingway himself, is in the past. Big game hunting is a relic of the first half of the 20th century and has no more place in a 21st-century world than black-and-white TV and printed morning newspapers.
The New Big 5 — the numerical “5” is more marketable and packs a bigger visual punch — takes at least part of its inspiration from the World Wildlife Fund’s famous panda logo. In terms of the bigger picture, it’s about the bigger picture: the “world” in world wildlife. The Sixth Mass Extinction, which ecologists, field biologists and zoologists warn is already upon us, is a world-wide event, and will affect virtually every remaining species in the wild world. The New Big 5 focuses not just on Africa but on Asia, northern Europe, the polar regions, Australia and the Americas. Even in Africa, though, there are critically endangered iconic species that could use the attention, from the cheetah, the world’s fastest land mammal and genetically one of the oldest predators on the continent, to the African cape hunting dog, recently renamed the painted dog or painted wolf, perhaps the closest spiritual relation the continent has to Old World wolves.
The year so far has reminded us that life is tenuous and the future uncertain. The world’s remaining wild species — indeed every species on Earth, including we humans — face a critical 10 years. What we choose to do now may well determine the fate of life on Earth. More than a million species face extinction, from iconic animals like the lion and cheetah to the “unsung heroes” that include rare and endangered frogs birds and lizards.
The New Big 5 project posits that it’s not too late — yet. Change is possible. Provided, that is, we find the collective will.
©Alex Strachan