The Piercing Gaze of An African Wild Dog burrard-lucas.com
Among the many species of creatures that are in jeopardy of fading into extinction, there isn’t much information out there on the plight of the African Wild Dog (AWD). These incredible canids once roamed freely throughout much of Sub-saharan Africa but are now predominantly confined to small parts of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. But the countries where they are still found comprise a much larger area than the patchwork of comparatively small national parks and game reserves held within them. In looking at a map of protected AWD habitat relative to the geographic area in which they are found today, one can quickly see the small and disconnected patchwork of sanctuaries, wildlife parks and reserves where the species can go about its business without the perpetual threat of encountering humans and the associated dangers that have already brought the species to its knees. It’s like connecting the dots to form a blotchy and incomplete geographic space where they are safe, with a gauntlet of hundreds of miles of unprotected and hazardous African bush between protected areas. That would be fine and is what these incredible canids are built for if it didn’t mean that they’ll eventually have some sort of encounter with man or the many hazards that are associated with mankind. Worse yet, they have no way of knowing where these protected areas lie, so these places where they can seek sanctuary are largely ineffectual. If they did much good, the species wouldn’t continue to decline at such an alarming rate.
I used Copilot to provide a summary showing the historical versus current range of the AWD and provide an explanation of these maps along with relatively up-to-date information as to their continued decline over the past 100 years.
Click on any image or screenshot to view it in its entirety.
Current Versus Historical Range animalia-life.clubafricanwildlifeconservationfund.orginspiredpencil.orgWallpapercave.comWanderlustimages.com
For African Wild Dogs that are fortunate enough to have been born into or ultimately find themselves living within sanctuary boundaries and tending to new generations, there is the still the neverending risk that they’ll eventually venture outside of these habitats of relative safety. When this occurs, more often than not they are killed before landing safely in another. Unfortunately, and not unlike any animal, they can’t read signs or comprehend borders. Worse yet, the areas between these “safe zones” comprise the bulk of where most AWD’s spend their lives. It is, for all African species, the majority of their overall living space. The risks include but are not nearly limited to being hit while crossing roads, dying at the hands of poachers, or being shot for straying too close to a native farmer’s goats or cattle. Put differently, these are far-ranging apex predators and whether they remain within a given national park or any other form of sanctuary set aside for the protection of African wildlife and their habitat, it is simply a roll of the dice. Most AWD’s spend their entire lives traveling and maintaining pack territories well outside the boundaries of the relatively small areas which provide the very habitat that have been set aside for their survival. The larger the protected area, the greater the likelihood that they’ll remain.
It is when you look at Africa as a whole that you see just how small these protected areas are relative to its overall landmass. In our conquest to populate the African continent, we made an attempt at creating a few wonderful spaces and they do fall into some of the best habitats for many African species, but for Africa’s wildlife and their predilection for widespread travel and vast migrations, they are far too small.
When I began following the plight of the African Wild Dog four or five years ago, the estimated population remaining at that time was a staggeringly low 17,000. As a lover of dogs and their wild counterparts, I had no idea that the AWD was already so close to extinction, and I was overwhelmed with a deep sense of both sadness and anger. The reason for the sadness is obvious, but the anger was more complicated. How could we, as the supposed caretakers of the planet, have allowed such a massive decline in a species which looks very much like its close cousin, our beloved domestic dog?! If the population data as reflected above provides us with a reasonably accurate estimate, then there are now just 6,000 AWD’s remaining in the wild, or roughly a third of the population which existed just a half-decade ago. It doesn’t take a genius to see that it has become the “Eleventh Hour” and saving them now would require a complete workover to catapult them into the forefront of public consciousness in the same way that mankind came together to save itself when faced with the COVID pandemic. This is the sense of urgency that I spent a year on Quora trying my damndest to advocate for threatened and bighly endangered species only to find that the overwhelming majority of people who are supposedly committed to this very thing are still lost in talking about wildlife conservation without so much as lifting a finger to get involved in a way that their time and purported compassion results in “moving the ball down the field”. While they’re discussing the issue of the demise of keystone species all over the world, the very creatures they’re hoping to save are, each day, moving inexorably closer to oblivion. In other words, many “Red Listed” species will reach the point of extinction while these “talking heads” are still talking about it.
As was the case with the American bison, historians today have no concrete number as to the pre-white settlement population of buffalo roaming all over what would become the United States, but best guess estimates range from between 40 and 60 million animals. For the AWD, the number a century ago is estimated to have been in the “hundreds of thousands” roaming all over Africa. That there are estimated to be just 6,000 remaining today is beyond heartbreaking. It means that we, as the most powerful species on earth, haven’t learned a damned thing. Please let that resonate for a moment before continuing to read any further.
Worldwildlifefund.org
The primary reason as to why so many species of both flora and fauna are in serious trouble the world over is related to loss of habitat due to human encroachment. In Africa, humans and their activities such as burning, logging, farming, and mining have quickly spread throughout this magnificent continent once teeming with hundreds of animal species, large and small, roaming freely over hundreds of millions of acres of wilderness. Many African creatures are larger than creatures found anywhere else on earth and these large animals require continent-sized areas in which to thrive. More and more creatures cease to exist in and around regions of development and the entire African continent has become fragmented and discontinuous in the span of just two-hundred years. The entire landscape changed, beginning with European colonialism and followed by the Industrial Period when railroads connected towns and towns became cities, while nations became nations, and boundaries began to exist everywhere in a place that had never known boundaries.
Among other things, loss of habitat coupled with poaching, meat hunting, and legalized trophy hunting of many of the large ungulate species (herbivores), results in a major loss in food resources while apex predators like the African Wild Dog, lion, leopard, cheetah, and hyena quickly decimate what’s left of the remaining herds and other prey species that are caught in their own struggle for ecological survival. Whether predator or prey, they share the same fate from accidental human interaction through legalized hunting, poaching (which continues to run rampant even today when measures are in place to help curb the animal parts and trophies trade). The anecdotal analogy of the “thumb in the dyke” in an ill-fated attempt to keep billions of gallons of water from slashing its way downstream and taking with it everything in its path, seems appropriate. There aren’t nearly enough resources to fight the poaching problem head-on. Worldwide bans on the “animal parts” trade have helped, but from what I know of the issue, it has been like placing a bandaid on an arterial bleed, or fixing a single dent on a car ravaged by hail.
We are living in a time when most people are aware that Mother Earth is gravely displeased with our goings-on and the collateral damage left in our wake on our way to drastically overpopulate the planet to a point that defies our own logic and reasoning. It would seem that Ted Kyzinsky’s manifesto on “Industrial Society and its Future” wasn’t far off the mark. I read his manifesto when it was first published by the New York Times in 1996, while he was still hard-at-it making bombs to be unleashed on those he viewed as the creators of technology and unimaginable future technologies which were having or would ultimately have a drastic impact on the relatively controlled world he had known. In a nutshell, his manifesto blames humanity for taking technology too far and well past the point of diminishing returns, to a level where it controls us and no longer does the converse exist. It is worth reading and is even more relevant today than it was then. I obviously don’t condone his means for getting his point across, but as a prognosticator of the future of mankind, he was spot-on. There was a part of him that was truly sociopathic, but it shows that even a madman with a high IQ may have seen the world more clearly than many of us. He knew what was coming, and what the world has been up to since his demise proves it.
I fail to understand how global society can continue on its social media-driven path while allowing for the wholesale extinction of some of the world’s most beautiful, intelligent, and fascinating animals. I am not a member of any of the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (“Instant Gratification”). You will never hear me “tweet” about anything. There’s simply too much at stake to get lost in such nonsense. It would be an altogether different matter if social media didn’t function as a perpetual diversion from things of greater importance and these same platforms were put to better use in disseminating important information such as that which could be used to save our dying planet.
I do not think humankind has proven itself to be responsible enough to be the world’s top apex predator while also charged with being the planet’s caretaker. There’s a fundamental conflict of interest associated with such a responsibility. I suppose that many of you reading this will find that to be a harsh blanket statement, but someone needs to be an oracle for creatures who, while incredibly intelligent, simply don’t speak our language (though some of their languages have proven to be far more intricate, elegant, and complex than our own). I just don’t meet enough people who would risk the relative ease of their lives to do whatever it takes to save some of these creatures, including the African Wild Dog. If we refuse to do what it takes to save the AWD from almost certain demise, what does that say about our relationship with the most historically significant and beloved creature we’ve so carefully cultivated over a thousand centuries – the domestic dog?! Will we eventually turn our backs to “man’s best friend”, as well?!
There are, of course, certain wildlife conservation groups that have been charged with the monstrously huge task of saving these animals from the rest of us, but these groups are vastly understaffed and underfunded and are just not militant enough to address the very significant issue of poaching. I don’t care if a poacher is some person from a native tribe trying to make ends meet. Whatever his reasons, his actions border on evil. Get some funding out there so he can be given a job protecting these species in lieu of annihilating them.
Thoughtco.com
There are now close to eight billion people populating the globe and fewer than 6,000 African Wild Dogs (650 breeding pairs). This statement should serve as a “shock and awe tactic” to compel people to do something as opposed to just sitting around and talking about it. But my plea will likely die along with the creatures it is intended to protect. When a population of any animal gets too small to be viable (no longer sustainable because there aren’t enough individuals remaining to formulate a healthy gene pool), there is no going back. When the number of animals for a given species has reached this point, there is little that can be done, particularly if that species has proven itself unfit for captive breeding. Some animals are simply too wild and require continent-sized areas in which to thrive. Perhaps they don’t breed in captivity as a way of saying, “We are simply too good to submit to your machinations and would rather die than live out our once free-ranging lives in captivity!”.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you feel as guilty as I do for being a human being and, however unwittingly, taking part in the destruction of our planet, perhaps you’ll do some research of your own and find a wildlife and wild places organization you feel good about supporting. It may just be the most important thing you’ve ever done.
Here is a list of places to start. To expand it, just click.
African Wild Dog Conservation Organizations Photos.willbe.com (Burrard-Lucas Photography)Will Burrard-Lucas at willbl.comVisit photos.willbe.com for more extraordinary photographs of African Wildlife
I subscribed to Quora for an added something to do while laid up again in the hospital at the beginning of 2024 and during what was to be a long recovery period. I wrote a post or two during my week-long stay and then went a full year before giving it another thought.
As opposed to what I’d always thought of as a reliable question / answer based source of information, I found the platform to be in serious decline. Its algorithms and user interface aren’t exactly intuitive and it took me some time before I figured things out. Like most platforms, including your preferred video streaming services, YouTube, or most forms of social media, you have your daily feed which the site’s AI function serves-up based on individual use. The more you use the site, the more individually tailored your feed becomes. At first, and I have no idea as to what it was predicated on, my feed was all about gun control and heated, foul-mouthed arguments over the interpretation of the Second Amendment. These were the same inane arguments that have had news outlets and their respective liberal and conservative talking heads contesting and plaguing the non-gun-oriented public since the 1980’s. I was appalled by the collective waste of time, particularly because over a period spanning five decades, the only thing that has changed has been the guns, while the primary arguments over those guns have essentially remained unchanged. Big yawn!
After querying the platform to locate the “Spaces”, as Quora refers to them (there are hundreds if not thousands of topics), in which I found interest, I located just ten that resonated with my desire to contribute as a writer. By Thanksgiving of 2025, I’d written several hundred posts or provided what I believed to be necessary responses to inaccurate or less than knowledgeable posts written by others. Much of my writing has been on behalf of proactive wildlife conservation measures and raising public awareness on the state of wild places and wild things and, more specifically, just how close we are to saying goodbye to a profound number of threatened or endangered keystone species, after which entire ecosystems will quickly fail.
Because I’ve cared deeply about “The Environment” since I was old enough to think and reason for myself, I, almost without being aware of it, ventured in, headfirst and was cranking-out post after impassioned post, and response after impassioned response, in an attempt not only to inform but to compel people to “act” and put an end to fifty years of ignorance, inordinate amounts of research (we have effectively been studying many keystone species to death), lack of subject matter education, and worldwide political gridlock. When combining these factors, the end result has yielded almost nothing in terms of the kind of public awareness required to “move the ball down the field” and affect change. After all, in the end, it will be humankind itself that is in serious jeopardy. We simply cannot survive a world without other animal, insect, and plant species in it.
Though I know that the world, very much including this country, is in dire need of much more effective leadership as related to modern complexities, this was my chance to thoroughly engage in getting these extremely important points across, but what I found is that I was virtually alone even within these groups of self-purported experts on the the subject of “environmental conservation”. It was clear that there was a level of caring but it was equally clear that no one was presenting thoughts or ideas as to what to do about the mess we as human beings have created over the millenia or even during much more recent times. Even within this cross-section of “environmentally conscious” people who are trying to do the “right thing”, few seemed willing to become more deeply engaged and hear about the things that are absolutely necessary to turn things around. It seemed more to me like these Spaces were simply discussion forums where people were satisfied with comparing notes and learning more about animals they found to be cute, cuddly, or otherwise intriguing. Mere curiosities. People were attempting to better understand threatened and endangered species and the planet’s few remaining, but forever shrinking, “wild places”, but didn’t seem to comprehend the current state of affairs. Certainly not the grave nature of the circumstances surrounding these species and forever lost habitat due to human overpopulation and encroachment. That for the majority of these special animals, we’re at least thirty years past the point of no return but, even so, we owe it to the natural world to step up and give it our best effort to salvage a modicum of the way the world was for them and other, less threatened species, just one-hundred years ago.
I was overwhelmed and deeply saddened to find out for myself, once and for all, that my “fellow man” is largely incapable of the kind of empathy, compassion, and collective intelligence required to initiate substantive change even while we sit in what has quickly become the 11th hour for most of the creatures that have found their species being referred to as “threatened “, “endangered”, or even “critically endangered”.
I’ve also provided well-thought-out or researched answers to hundreds of questions on all sorts of topics (many of which were outside of my ten chosen Spaces) and was considered a key writer for most of the Spaces to which I belonged. It was fun to challenge myself to see how much I already knew about things like World History, American History, the History of World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Viet Nam, and the numerous wars in the Middle East. For many years, I’ve also had a serious interest in the History of War on this planet as a whole. I enjoyed answering questions regarding geography and various cultures as they relate to many different geographic regions. The Cold War is another favorite but, perhaps my most favored subject of all: The American West, with a particular interest spanning the past three hundred years. Late 19th Century and early 20th Century Polar Exploration and Adventure has always struck a chord with me. The areas of Mindfulness, Spiritually (not based on any given , highly specialized religion) and “Advanced Thinking” have also been at the top of my “Conversational Bucket List”. I had the opportunity to engage in answering questions on many of these personal interests and, in doing so, I did a lot of research and learned an incredible amount which helped to round-out my knowledge of many of the aforementioned subjects. Not unlike any internet platform (social or knowledge-based), depending on how you choose to utilize Quora determines whether you find it to be a valuable learning exercise or end up being fed nothing but pure garbage. You must have enough sense to discern what is factually based from that which is derived from the accompanying AI generated posts, answers, and questions, gross misinformation, and what has recently come into play in the form of rampant image fakery and plagiarism.
To become a “Contributor” as opposed to being just one of thousands of passive followers, you are either invited by a Space administrator or owner and required to submit a writing sample, or, you can contact the Space yourself and request to be a contributor and, if that site is still taking on new people, submit your writing sample and wait for a response which took just a day, or two. Many of these Spaces list several hundred contributors, but I’ve found that fewer than a quarter of them actually maintained any real presence on most of their listed Spaces. After a couple of months of feverish writing (I believed in what I was writing about and the subjects were important and well within my wheelhouse), I began to sense that something wasn’t right but I couldn’t quite describe it. So, for a time, perhaps as long as six or seven months, I felt a sense of purpose. But at the same time, I’m a uniquely qualified writer and came to it with a broad-ranging professional and avocational background and, though retired, I maintain a very busy life. Therefore, I thought it would be wise to curb my activity to just six hours a week. I could see, quite clearly, that thousands of people had lost themselves to Quora. Many had joined eight, or more, years ago. Others would submit fifteen, twenty, or up to thirty posts in a single day, so it was clear that most of these people (I’ve never understood this about social media) were feeling at least a modicum of gratification from their posts on this megalithic internet platform, where (IMO) any one individual is essentially anonymous. But I learned that this was just another sign of the times and it was likely the same with other popular social media platforms.
In contrast, I did not consider my subscription to Quora to be driven by personal social need, rather, I became a member of Quora, because I enjoy writing and it was as good a place as any to polish my and augment my skills. Writing about subjects that I believe to be important was a bonus. Though I had kept my expectations low in terms of developing any real following, in less than a year (closer to nine months) after I became an earnest contributor, I had received just over 284,000 views of my various writings. If you apply the math, that comes to 568,000 views per year. Not a significant number when compared to some long-time Qurans, but I am confident that if you were to compare a typical post that I’ve written to those of most others, you would find significant differences in writing quality, knowledgeability, substantive content, and obvious, well-intentioned effort. Some of my longer posts more closely resembled an essay on the given subject than a simple one or two paragraph post, so they were invariably far more informational and detailed. But I wasn’t writing for the general public and my subjects were well-defined, as were the audiences by virtue of the Spaces I had chosen. It was much more enjoyable and the collective knowledge much greater in the four or five guitar-centric Spaces I’d joined as a writer (with topics ranging from playing techniques, to learning about the instrument and its history from its beginnings in Western Europe, to contemporary luthiery – the art of crafting fine stringed instruments, to contemporary designs and building methods, to vintage acoustic guitars). On the contrary, it was within the five environmental conservation Spaces that I encountered such a high level of frustration.
I had never intended for my presence on Quora to be any kind of long-term engagement, but for the time I was at it, I felt a responsibility to try to affect change by altering long-held perceptions on issue of wildlife and habitat conservation. I was also on one landscape photography-geared Space and got the chance to post a portion of my collection of landscape photographs taken while partaking in a cornucopia of mountain sports and activities in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West and, much later, here, where I live in Central Texas. Some of the pics I posted were from trips I’d taken while exploring West Texas and the Big Bend Region, including Big Bend National Park, one of the most remote and beautiful places in all of the US. I liked this photography Space a lot for its simplicity…just a place where people shared their wonderful photographs from places all over the world while not out shopping for inordinate levels of recognition or socially-driven “buzz”. Just amateur and professional photographers alike sharing some of their best work and being supportive of one another.
The thing that I did predominantly for my own edification (the part that felt the most gratifying) was in being involved as a primary contributor to the four “guitar-centric” Spaces. For these, I wrote hundreds more posts and answered hundreds of questions on topics ranging from vintage guitars to guitar maintenance and repair, reviewing both electric and acoustic guitars, advanced playing techniques, guitar studio and related gear selection, and encouraging guitarists of all levels with advice based on sixteen years of playing, buying, selling, and collecting guitars . For the most part, I enjoyed contributing to these Spaces and believe that my knowledge was appreciated by many. That bit of encouragement was born out of the feedback I would get from other Space contributors and the greater guitar community on Quora. There are dozens of “Guitar Spaces” on the platform, but I had spent some time looking into most of them before deciding to keep it to just four.
A surprisingly enjoyable example occurred when I answered a question submitted by an eleven year old boy who had been dutifully playing piano to please his gifted piano-playing parents, starting at the age of four. This meant that he’d already been taking his twice-weekly lessons for seven years before a friend introduced him to an acoustic guitar. Not surprisingly, he was smitten! His question was simple but, at the same time, fraught (for me as a reasonably objective person) with complexity.
Unlike most of my responses which came to me quickly while shooting from the hip, this question demanded some serious contemplation and empathy not only for this eleven-year-old, musically inclined kid, but for his ostensibly well-meaning parents. I took the question quite seriously before crafting a response. He had approached his parents not with altogether switching from piano to guitar, but with at least having the opportunity to try guitar while continuing with his, by now, rigorous piano regimen. They laid out a deal for him that said ‘no’ to guitar until he’d completed 8th grade, roughly three years later. That is a lengthy sentence for anyone, let alone an eleven-year-old who’d (from my point of view) already fulfilled his duty if based solely on the demands of his parents. But, unlike most parents of his generation, these were clearly parents who believed strongly that they’d had their son’s best interests in mind (particularly since they were both living any musician’s dream by playing piano as their primary source of professional income).
Hearing a bit about his parents, it was clear that neither of them had followed an easy path to finding success and had probably studied piano all the way through one of the country’s better colleges of music. They were classical players. My response both honored the efforts of the child and his parents while taking a “middle of the road” stance. I believed that these parents were extremely fortunate given the times we live in and, given that their offspring had any inclination at all to learn to play a difficult musical instrument, or was even interested in music with all the potential diversions kids have today.
My advice for him was to go to his parents with an amended plan which would afford him the opportunity to play both and see how that went for a period of one year, with a commitment to both instruments, but instead of doubling his load with more lessons, I suggested that he first see if he could pull it off under his own steam. This would, of course, lead to some “loosening” of the boy’s remaining commitment to piano, so I suggested that he put a ten hour per week cap on his guitar work. If, after one year’s time he was able to make some significant progress with acoustic guitar, he would be able to choose between the two instruments – provided he still had this same desire. The only financial requirement from his parents would be to invest in a good quality, concert-size acoustic guitar. If they do the due diligence, they’ll find that a very good guitar (one that he can grow with) can be had for just under to just over a thousand dollars. His other requirement would be to maintain his schoolwork and grades. Any way you slice it, these next three years would be difficult, but if he was of gifted musical talent, it was within the realm of being doable. I came up with this by telling him the truth: that even if their response was a “no”, continuing with piano for a few more years would not would become an obstacle to his future guitar playing journey, but, more than likely, that additional experience in playing piano and being a student of music will provide a sturdy foundation for picking up the guitar and hitting the ground already running, well ahead of others who are just starting out.
I went so far as to recommend that he show his parents my response as it should be abundantly clear that I stood on firm musical ground when proposing the idea. He contacted me about a month later to inform me that his parents had agreed to his amended counter-offer. He was extremely pleased (overjoyed) that our little plan had worked and thanked me profoundly. It made all the work I’d committed to Quora worthwhile. I am sixty-four with a number of significant health problems that took hold of my very satisfying life about six years ago and, thus, had never really had the time or energy to contribute to Quora in the first place, so, for the last month I have contributed very little. I may pick it up again someday, but I also have a blog and any time spent on Quora has been robbing me of time I’d have otherwise spent on my own “Space”. Still, I have reached thousands of people that I’d have not otherwise gotten in front of. I’m glad that I stuck with it until I found some of its more intellectual spaces and had the chance to write about things I find to be of utmost importance.
Less desirable things that I noticed about Quora, either immediately or over the course of my first few months when I’d begun to submit posts and answer questions with much more regularity. Early on, I’d made submissions to become a contributor to just four or five combined “Spaces” (to become more active rather than being a casual follower). Over time, I subscribed to five or six additional Spaces. I wouldn’t have made written submissions to any of the Spaces I had been following unless I felt that I could be of substantive value. To me, that meant crafting high-quality and interesting posts or fielding questions that were not only in my wheelhouse, but had some real appeal. I’d gone in thinking there would be many meaningful question and answer opportunities with qualities similar to the guitar scenario I provided above, but, across my other Spaces, that level of appreciation for one of my contributions turned out to be quite rare. I did have many positive interactions with other contributors within the guitar and music oriented Quora communities, the “Nature Photography” Space, and there was a Space titled “Into the Wild” which was right up my alley and I found it to be rewarding and supportive. But the wildlife and wild habitat conservation Spaces were different.
What I found to be particularly interesting as well as making me all the more wary of potential negatives which might result in my prompt exit from Quora (I do not subscribe to any other social media platform), the more I explored the site and read the bios of some of the other contributors, the more I began to see certain patterns that I didn’t find appealing within Quora’s database. Some of the site’s members were listed as contributors to as many as a hundred Spaces, yet few maintained any substantive level of contribution to the bulk of their listed Spaces. Not being able to fulfill a reasonable commitment to my chosen Spaces is precisely why I limited myself to just nine, or at times and through direct invitation, as many as twelve. I thought to myself, “What is this, he who dies having listed the most Spaces, wins?! Geez! From what I’ve learned about people in my sixty-for years of careful observation, this sort of thing was an indication of a personality, or types, of which I’d always had difficulty in establishing solid relationships. Thankfully, I am now retired and can pick and choose the kinds of people I associate with.
I was suspicious of anyone who would wish for the “world” to see how “prolific” they were as contributors without actually contributing much of anything (to most of the Spaces to which they subscribed). Even worse, I noticed that some of these same self-absorbed individuals had worked their way up through some of the same Spaces that I contributed to, only I was often selected to appear right alongside them as a “Key Contributor” in the banners of the various “About” pages of my Spaces, either immediately after the usual vetting process or after I had written just a handful of submissions (posts, answers to questions). The difference between us was that I was comparatively new to a given Space while most of these people had been submitting posts for years. The only way that I can figure this is if I’d written just enough high-quality posts to quickly be taken seriously by Space administrators or Space owners. After all, they’re going to want to advertise their key writers, the writers who are most likely to attract more followers. This factors-in as to how “Spaces” are monetized. I still don’t know, in more definitive terms, how or why I was able to move up through the ranks so quickly.
I was thankful for my good fortune thus far (I’d been a subscriber for well under a year). I had somehow managed to accelerate the process of becoming a “known” writing entity within most of my chosen Spaces. By then, just four of my Spaces were dedicated to wildlife and wild places conservation. It was within these particular Spaces where it quickly became clear that there were a number of individuals who had come to know one another (not from face to face human interaction, but virtually, through the Spaces they shared in common) and each of them had purportedly attained some sort of “elite status” through the typically five to eight years of steadfastly submitting posts and ultimately being recognized for their efforts. Most had several million views and came from educated backgrounds, claiming high-order positions career-wise and within their self-described social circles. Put bluntly, I have a strong distaste for this personality type as I had run head-long into it many times in my professional, pre-retirement life. They, and people very much like them often follow a self-made path to go on to become CEO’s or upper-echelon execs for many of this country’s corporations. This is a widely known fact which can easily be found in internet searches on the subject. There were many times during my career where I’d witnessed those with with similar personalities treating their employees in a degrading way, particularly when I had moved into loftier positions where these people had become my peers within the context of corporate structure and culture. There were a number of occasions where I had people coming to me completely distraught to see if I could do something about the “management by fear” atmosphere and regularly occurring condescension and generally poor treatment of the employees who served underneath them. At the risk of being demoted, or worse, I’ve “gone to bat” for employees assigned to me since early on in my career, so I wasn’t about to stop when I became a key player within the corporate hierarchy and had some sway. My management style couldn’t have been any more different than that of those with whom I’d had tenuous working relationships. There was no escaping them and we might even share adjoining offices. I am certain that for others the tension between those offices must have been palpable. By this point in my career, I’d read several books on the subject of sociopathy and had worked with any number of senior managers who exhibited textbook sociopathic behaviors. For me, the ensuing verbal conflicts come down to nothing more than “good versus evil” scenarios and I have had every inclination to take these people down, at least a notch, or two, in the name of the “greater good”. Since I was a kid I have felt a “calling” to defend the weak and oppose the strong and do not recall ever encountering any sort of negative consequence for taking these people on. Needless to say, I felt good about doing so. Additionally, I typically found friends in high places that I didn’t know I had.
This sort of situation has played-out for me several times on Quora but I have not once gone “looking for it). At some point, a number of these people have attempted to sabotage posts I had written with belligerent and aggressive commentary which usually came in the form of questioning the authenticity of what I had written. I had never done the same to any of them, so it left me wondering as to their reasoning. When this occurred, I would typically attempt to respond “offline” and check to see if they had their PM (personal messaging) function turned on. I do. But often, they do not and I am forced to take them on “out in the open” where readers can see the ensuing comments and responses. I do not take pleasure in shutting such individuals down and have learned to keep it short, but decisive, while choosing my words carefully such that I don’t break any of Quora’s “rules of engagement” or be off-putting to the many other readers of the given post. This is a delicate balance but, more times than not, I’ve been able to put the “shutdown” on any detractors I had picked up (not unlike excess baggage) on my journey through Quora. I don’t know why these people feel the need to attempt to diminish what I’d written (or, for that matter, what anyone had taken the time and energy to write) when virtually all of the other comments were positive in nature. I can certainly guess that it has much to do with the personality type that I’ve described. It only leaves me wishing that I could meet these people in person where they don’t have the internet to hide behind. I view them as cowardly and passive aggressive and make those views known in any response that I make. This scene seldom happens anymore, but before I could break free and simply write without counting on some sort of conflict, this happened some six or seven times until I’d finally dealt with each one of them and then it ended, abruptly.
I take absolutely no enjoyment in publicly sparring with such people and it is part of the reason that I’ve lost interest in giving Quora any more of my time. It is the primary duty of Quora’s moderators to squash this type of behavior before it gets out of control. I’m a big boy fully capable of fighting my own battles, but the main reason for my loss of interest in being a contributor on Quora is that after just a year, my experiences on the platform took on a hollowness that is difficult to describe, yet perhaps not too hard to understand. Underneath my seemingly bulletproof exterior (I have heard this many times from people I trust), I’m probably somewhere close to two-thirds introvert and one third extrovert (just enough to get by) which means that spending too much time around other people tends to leave me tapped. In other words, it’s always felt to me like I give far more than I get. The same thing holds true whether interactions are in close proximity, or through an internet connection.
I’ve never quite understood the mass appeal of social media and why it seems that millions of people obtain any sense of gratification or feelings of fulfillment by engaging in it so fully. For me, I had no social reasons for subscribing to Quora in the first place. It was simply an outlet for my writing and when it became obvious that I could not affect the lack of general ignorance regarding threatened and endangered species and tragically and rapidly diminishing habitat due to human encroachment, I felt that I had done as much as I could and further involvement would be a fool’s errand. It was, quite simply, time for me to move on.
My takeaway after a year (ten months in earnest) of pouring insights and knowledgeability into the platform, I had reached a point of diminishing returns and it was clear to me that, I alone, could not make a substantive difference. Considering the times we live in, I wonder now why I thought it would even be remotely possible. I believe now more than ever that by the time most people awaken and realize just how bad things have gotten for the billions of creatures with whom they share the planet, it’ll be far too late to salvage anything and we’ll all be (the good along with the bad) just a hop, skip, and a jump away from our long overdue demise. This statement comes after years of research and careful observation of what has inexorably transpired over the course of my life.
The basis for this thinking is simple (as I have written about exhaustively and told anyone who cared enough to listen), it will take far more time, funding, and concerted effort to make the kinds of changes necessary to turn things around (with enough time leftover) to give the world’s other creatures (creations) the chance they deserve to survive. Many of the most endangered species are high-order creatures which are the very foundation for life on planet earth, and their numbers in the wild are already so few that there aren’t enough individuals remaining to provide a healthy gene pool from which to procreate and, even if every change required for their survival happened tomorrow, it is already past the point of no return for many of them. Without them, there can be no resurrection from the damage we as human beings have already caused. So, the next time you reach for your phone to check your Twitter feed, please think about what you should be doing instead. It’s time to move on.
According to the site Enviroliteracy, the following screenshot shows number of the African Wild Dogs (AWD’s) remaining, as of March of this year, to be around 7,000 individuals with just 1,500 listed as adults.
The key to understanding the relationship between being formally listed as endangered (the AWD made the ICNU “Red List” list twenty-five years ago) and attempting to predict how long a given species has left in based solely upon scientific research, the most important of which has to do with the minimum number of breeding pairs required to maintain a healthy gene pool (for that given species). Obviously, no one can be certain but studies have indicated that the number hovers around 300.
Science has already spent decades researching endangered species of all kinds, with more research going into some than others. “Higher-order” mammals, whether sea or land-based, seem to get the most attention. It makes sense that we would be the most concerned about the creatures with which we have the most in common. Social behavior, language, habitat, overall intelligence, and other characteristics. This research has led to a much greater understanding of the creatures we most respect and admire. Because they are generally at the top of the food chain and would be the most harmful to the ecosystems surrounding them were they to disappear, endangered predators and species that are strong bio-indicators garner the most attention. Though not as heavily studied as certain bears, tigers, lions, wolves, whales, and some porpoises, the African Wild Dog certainly warrants ample consideration. The ecosystems in which they are found and the other creatures within them would topple, creating a domino effect and many other species would be brought to the brink of extinction, or worse, simply disappear not long after the demise of the AWD.
There is more pressure than ever on those of us who truly care to redouble our efforts such that more people around the world join the fight to protect existing AWD habitat and push for the creation of additional habitat by funding conservancy programs to procure lands which are adjacent to the patchwork of existing protected areas and national and state run wildlife preserves. The concept is already at work in other parts of the world through organizations such as the Nature Conservancy. The point is is that there are real world mechanisms in place to acquire additional lands on behalf of endangered species. I don’t see why, with appropriate funding, the same concept can’t be put use in parts of Africa where the AWD still has a toehold. Perhaps it’s already happening and I’m just unaware of such doings.
I wake up each morning with an anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach with grave concerns for this planet and its inhabitants knowing in my heart that it may already be too late for turning things around. There really isn’t much time remaining for the world’s most endangered species, twenty, perhaps thirty years. But then I have a talk with myself over a cup of coffee and realize once again that we’ve got an immense obligation to threatened species everywhere and that no matter how bleak things may look, we must have the resolve to fight our best fight and if it should come to it, go down swinging.
First, I’ll add that poaching isn’t something that only takes place in faraway lands. It is a significant problem right here at home, in the US.
As with most conservation issues, it’s like peeling an onion with each layer getting closer to the core. On the face of it, many of us view poachers as bed men doing evil deeds, but it can be far more complicated than that. If you look at the problem of the black market for animal pieces and parts as being an evil entity with its roots stretching far and wide, you’ll find that once you get far enough out from the root ball, you’ll reach the poaching aspect of the illegal trade. Things are a bit different in the different areas around the world where poaching exists. You may even find that poachers can sometimes be good people doing evil deeds. In Africa and India, for instance, some of the poachers are poor farmers or herdsman from the neighboring tribes and villages. The gravitational pull for those who become poachers is quite strong in terms of putting food on the table for their families. Poachers receive a small fraction of what a given animal is worth to a wholesaler within his other country and that fraction is miniscule as compared with what those same pieces and parts are fetching at the end of the line, where they are sold to dealers in countries like Japan. But as little as a poacher makes on their end, it is more than they can possibly make on their crops and livestock alone. So the incentive is extremely tempting. Add to that that there are cultural differences which make it easier to kill these animals than we in the West can comprehend. In many cases, tribesman are histlorically accustomed to hunting many of these now threatened and endangered species. I can’t say that the paradigm is the same in every impoverished country, but it is certainly similar. I would anticipate that the poaching problem is bad enough that if a particular poacher is caught or killed there’s another right behind him awaiting his turn to carry the AK.
On the other side, you’ve got guys who are paid some paltry sum to put their lives on the line protect these animals from being poached. In relation to the size of the territory they are responsible for, the number of paid rangers is very small. It is not unusual for a poacher and ranger to know one another or even belong to the same tribe and live in the same village. Graft is a very real problem for a ranger who simply gets paid to look the other way. Of course, the rangers aren’t nearly all on “the take”. But the point is, on this level of the problem, it is more complicated than it might appear to be. That being said, friendly or not, these poachers are a cog in what comprises the wheels of poaching and they must be stopped. More funding is needed so that park rangers aren’t so easily tempted to break the laws that they’re paid to enforce. There are state sponsored anti -poaching organizations and there are the smaller game management entities that are generally not-for-profit associations that operate on shoestring budgets and their anti-poaching personnel are completely out-numbered by “the bad guys”. Being a ranger for this kind of conservation effort comes with serious dangers and many rangers are simply killed in the night while out on patrol. They could use the help of privately owned mercenary companies that have been in place contracting to the US military in the neverending wars in the Middle East.Though this is an expensive option, it is possible to obtain the funds necessary to get these wildlife advocacies the help they need if the right people get involved.
The way to solve the overall problem is to work it from both ends towards the middle. There are already international laws in place to put an end to world trade in animal pieces and parts, but they are not as effective as they should be because the law-breakers aren’t punished to the fullest extent of the law. Often, they are simply fined while being allowed to continue. Corruption runs amok. Laws “without teeth” are of little value in the fight to put an end to trafficking in animal parts.
While not perfect, the poaching problem in the US has been reduced, with steep fines and substantial jail time levied on offenders. Still, highly organized poaching is the same most organized crime and can be fairly sophisticated in their cryptic ways and means of evasion.
The best thing we as simple citizens of the world can do is see that our people on the front lines are closely backed and that related anti-poaching programs ascend the ladder from being grassroot efforts to amply funded organizations with appropriate structure and enough “boots on the ground” to make a palpable difference. Make no mistake, this has gone from being a back-burner issue to one of serious urgency with mind-blowing consequences if we don’t act, in earnest, in the here and now.
A Pair of African Wild Dogs in the Late Afternoon Light
Among the many species of creatures that are in jeopardy of fading into oblivion, there is little information on the African Wild Dog. These canids once roamed freely throughout much of Sub-saharan Africa but are now predominantly confined to parts of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. But the countries where they are still found comprise a much larger area than the patchwork of small national parks and reserves held within them. It’s like connecting the dots to form a blotchy and incomplete geographic space. Once an African Wild Dog leaves the sanctity of a reserve, they’ll have tto run a hazardous gauntlet until finding the next. Unfortunately, and not unlike any animal, they can’t read signs or comprehend borders. Worse yet, there can be long distances to be traversed before they can safely find a new home. The areas between the sanctuaries are where these animals are at the greatest risk, from being hit while crossing roads, poaching, or being shot for straying too close to a native farmer’s goats or cattle.
As is the case with almost all threatened species, loss of habitat due to human encroachment is front and center as the main problem these creatures face. As humans, activities such as logging, farming, and mining have quickly spread throughout the African continent and more and more creatures have ceased to exist in and around these regions. Among other things, loss of habitat means a drop in food resources as apex predators like the African Wild Dog, lion, leopard, cheetah, and hyena quickly decimate the remaining herds of ungulates and other prey species that are caught in their own struggle for a place to call home. They share the same or similar fate from incidental human interaction and poaching, which continues to run rampant even today when measures are in place to help curb the animal parts trade. But the analogy of the “thumb in the dyke” in an ill-fated attempt to keep billions of gallons of water from slashing its way downstream and taking with it everything in its path, seems appropriate. There aren’t nearly enough resources to fight the poaching problem head-on. Worldwide bans on the “animal parts” trade have helped but it’s akin to fixing one dent on a car with severe hail damage.
We are living in a time when most people are aware that Mother Earth is displeased with our goings-on and the damage we’ve done in our wake. It would seem that Ted Kyzinsky’s manifesto on “Industrial Society and its Future” wasn’t far off the mark. I read his essay when it was first published by the New York Times in 1996,while he was still hard-at-it making bombs to be unleashed on those he viewed as the proprietors of current and probable future technology. In a nutshell, it blames humanity for taking technology too far and well past the point of diminishing returns. Open your minds and read it. I obviously don’t condone his means for getting his point across. There was a part of him that was truly sociopathic, but it shows that even a madman with a high IQ can see the world more clearly than the rest of us. He knew what was coming and what the world has been up to since his demise proves it.
I fail to understand how global society can continue on its social media-driven path while allowing for the wholesale extinction of some of the world’s most beautiful, intelligent, and fascinating animals. I am not a member of any of the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. You will never see me “tweet” about anything. There’s simply too much at stake to get lost in such foolishness. It is akin to an ostrich putting its head in the sand.
I do not think humankind has proven itself to be responsible enough to be the world’s top apex predator while also being charged with being the planet’s number one caretaker. I suppose that many of you reading this will find that to be a harsh blanket statement, but someone needs to be an oracle for creatures who, while incredibly intelligent, simply don’t speak our language (though some of their languages have been shown to be far more intricate, elegant, and complex than our own). I just don’t meet enough people who would risk the relative ease of their lives to do whatever it takes to save some of these creatures, including the African Wild Dog which, by the way, happens to be a close cousin to our most beloved and favored companion, the domestic dog.
There are, of course, certain wildlife conservation groups that have been tasked with the monstrously huge job of saving these animals from the rest of us, but these groups are vastly understaffed and underfunded and are just not militant enough to address the very significant issue of poaching. I don’t care if a poacher is some person from a native tribe (as is often the case) trying to make ends meet. Whatever his reasons, his actions border on evil. Get some funding out there so he can be given a job protecting these species in lieu of annihilating them.
There are now close to eight billion people populating the globe and fewer than 5,000 African Wild Dogs (650 breeding pairs). This statement should serve as a “shock and awe” tactic but it will likely die with the creatures it is intended to protect. When a population of any animal gets too small to be viable (no longer sustainable because there aren’t enough of individuals left to formulate a healthy gene pool), there is no return. When the number of animals for a given species has reached this point, there is little that can be done, particularly if that species has proven itself unfit for captive breeding. Some animals are simply too wild and require continent-size areas in which to thrive. Perhaps they don’t breed in captivity as a way of saying “we’re too good for this sort of thing!”.
Thanks for taking a moment to read this. If you feel as guilty as I do for being a human being and, however unwittingly, having a part in the destruction of our planet, perhaps you’ll do some research of your own and find a nature conservancy you feel good about supporting. It just might be the most important thing you’ve ever done.
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