our beautiful wilderness is in trouble
it’s being hammered on all sides by
human encroachment poaching and habitat
degradation and our mission is to save
these light cuts work dogs and all these
other species in a beautiful ecosystem
Zambia’s Luangwa Valley is indeed one of
Africa’s best-kept secrets this
environment is so awesome that it is one
of the last remaining strongholds for
lions on the African continent I have
been very fortunate to live in this
beautiful environment surrounded by
wildlife and living here I’ve been able
to see animals live in action previously
I only used to see them on a tiny
black-and-white TV but I was fascinated
even then my uncle works as a safari
guide and he always came home with
wonderful stories of animals that he met
during his work and those just
fascinated me they encouraged me to join
my secondary school Conservation Club so
I could learn more about these species I
found many fascinating things about the
animals in this place but also really
sad news ecosystem was under threat from
you know common things that are
affecting many other places in the world
human encroachment poaching habitat
destruction you name them and so I
decided then then to say I’m going to do
something about it I decided to become a
wildlife vet so I could help treat and
cure animals that had survived bullet
wounds from poachers and so I studied
really hard I would stand at night
really late at night with my feet in a
bucket of cold water so I could make the
grades to get into University and that
did work I was very lucky I got admitted
into the pre vet program at UBC in
Canada ready to go take on this
challenge to become a wildlife vet but
you know it didn’t go down well second
year into the program I discovered I
could not handle cutting anything with a
sharp knife and
my dream for vet school crashed and
burned right there it was so sad that
spent so many sleepless nights studying
to do this but it did not end there I
got diverted into a different career
paths where I could still help these
animals I currently work as a wildlife
biologist with the Zambian kind of a
program and our mission is to save these
large cats who are dogs my absolute
favorite and all these other species in
our beautiful ecosystem through Applied
Research and community-based
conservation so my job is one of the
best on the planet I get to see and
touch animals that are only seen in
books and magazines before and it’s an
amazing experience I get to collect key
data on survival on who’s going where
who’s eating what and what sort of areas
they’re using in our beautiful ecosystem
a typical day begins with me and my
partner in crime
Gibson Banda it’s not crime crime
because Gibson is a wildlife police
officer with Department of Wildlife and
national parks in Zambia and he is a
great person to work with he’s a
comedian so we’re laughing all the time
he’s a wonderful human GPS he knows the
system like the back of his hand and
this is an area the size of Yellowstone
National Park so it’s great we get
carried away sometimes we out for days
we run out of water and we had to share
water holes and drinking points with
hippos elephants sometimes we get to
some really bad places you know we get
stuck and getting back on the road can
take anything between 15 minutes 24
hours sometimes the best we hope for is
an entire afternoon but it works out
quite able to get around and so this
difficult task if you call it is
compensated by even more beautiful
pictures like this one our absolute
favorite to see out in the field is the
male strawberry blonde lion coat ginger
he is not ginger ginger his ma
strawberry blonde but strawberry is not
a good name
I’m a liar Jinja has a brother called
garlic garlic is a regular lion we
always happy to see garlic he’s a lion
what’s not good it’s not good about that
anyway all of these wonderful scenes all
of these amazing experiences in the
field lead to the sad reality that we
have to live with animals are being
affected by the poaching crisis fueled
by the illegal bushmeat trade these are
not the targeted species for the
bushmeat trade we do not eat lions we
don’t eat war dogs but people are going
for deer sized antelope that they can
sell to urban areas and all those places
the methods that they use are non
selective so that means animals anything
that is of this shoulder-height this
shorter height can get in and get caught
and the impacts are catastrophic as you
can see animals die animals lose their
legs and that is just pretty sad but we
work really hard to save as many animals
as we can and working really closely
with people that are in the park all the
time helps us do what we do and these
animals I’m happy to say made a complete
recovery animals do recover even from
injuries that as gruesome as that just
going to share one story about a
particularly favorite lion of mine who
we call funny ear it’s a very it’s a
very unimaginative name for a really
beautiful lioness but funny here was a
young lioness when I first started with
a Zambian kind of a program she was
about a year and a half she stands out
because of her ear that funny ear in
2010 she picked up a snare in her
travels with her pride and it was pretty
sad but luckily the people that spotted
her and they reported to us and were
able to go there check off the snare and
she healed remarkably well and so her
story kinda ends in a beautiful business
type you know
Disney style ended she got her prints
and well couple princess cause she’s a
lioness in her prime really beautiful
and in 2015 we so funny
erase her first litter of Cubs really
amazing a graduation ceremony of some
sorts so gives us hope to keep on
pushing and keep on working and so we’ve
heard all about getting people to care
and every society every culture has a
saying that goes in the line children
are the future and we take that to heart
in our wake and we really try to work
really hard with these communities and
these students to just get them become
environmentally conscious lawyers
teachers nurses and conservation leaders
of the next generation we take students
out in the field and expose them to our
life in their natural habitat and it’s
it’s just an amazing experience and
these kids love being out in the field
they don’t want the fieldwork to stop so
it gives us hope to see that they’re
ready to learn and they’re willing to go
the extra mile and along with this
conservation education work we want to
impart skills that will empower them
going forward so it skills like public
speaking writing computers that can be
taken for granted in the developed world
and in our cities these students who
have the chance to get and sort of equal
footing almost with regards to uni
admission getting employment anything
other than poaching and so last year
with a generous support from the big cat
initiative were able to do a human
wildlife conflict study focused entirely
on understanding people’s interactions
to big cats and also other carnival’s it
was a nice opportunity for students to
get in the villages talk to people share
their conservation message but also we
found happily that there is not as much
conflict as we thought in our part of
the world but there was a lot of
negative perceptions about big cats in
general we need to get people to care
about these issues and it comes from us
all of us that are here talking to them
about experiences that we
had with these animals Alice deal middle
school right here in DC they did a
podcast on what it means to them to
conserve lions and I’m going to quote
one of what one of the students said she
said we need to give big cuts and large
predators a chance we are their only
predator they cannot survive without our
help thank you
you
it’s being hammered on all sides by
human encroachment poaching and habitat
degradation and our mission is to save
these light cuts work dogs and all these
other species in a beautiful ecosystem
Zambia’s Luangwa Valley is indeed one of
Africa’s best-kept secrets this
environment is so awesome that it is one
of the last remaining strongholds for
lions on the African continent I have
been very fortunate to live in this
beautiful environment surrounded by
wildlife and living here I’ve been able
to see animals live in action previously
I only used to see them on a tiny
black-and-white TV but I was fascinated
even then my uncle works as a safari
guide and he always came home with
wonderful stories of animals that he met
during his work and those just
fascinated me they encouraged me to join
my secondary school Conservation Club so
I could learn more about these species I
found many fascinating things about the
animals in this place but also really
sad news ecosystem was under threat from
you know common things that are
affecting many other places in the world
human encroachment poaching habitat
destruction you name them and so I
decided then then to say I’m going to do
something about it I decided to become a
wildlife vet so I could help treat and
cure animals that had survived bullet
wounds from poachers and so I studied
really hard I would stand at night
really late at night with my feet in a
bucket of cold water so I could make the
grades to get into University and that
did work I was very lucky I got admitted
into the pre vet program at UBC in
Canada ready to go take on this
challenge to become a wildlife vet but
you know it didn’t go down well second
year into the program I discovered I
could not handle cutting anything with a
sharp knife and
my dream for vet school crashed and
burned right there it was so sad that
spent so many sleepless nights studying
to do this but it did not end there I
got diverted into a different career
paths where I could still help these
animals I currently work as a wildlife
biologist with the Zambian kind of a
program and our mission is to save these
large cats who are dogs my absolute
favorite and all these other species in
our beautiful ecosystem through Applied
Research and community-based
conservation so my job is one of the
best on the planet I get to see and
touch animals that are only seen in
books and magazines before and it’s an
amazing experience I get to collect key
data on survival on who’s going where
who’s eating what and what sort of areas
they’re using in our beautiful ecosystem
a typical day begins with me and my
partner in crime
Gibson Banda it’s not crime crime
because Gibson is a wildlife police
officer with Department of Wildlife and
national parks in Zambia and he is a
great person to work with he’s a
comedian so we’re laughing all the time
he’s a wonderful human GPS he knows the
system like the back of his hand and
this is an area the size of Yellowstone
National Park so it’s great we get
carried away sometimes we out for days
we run out of water and we had to share
water holes and drinking points with
hippos elephants sometimes we get to
some really bad places you know we get
stuck and getting back on the road can
take anything between 15 minutes 24
hours sometimes the best we hope for is
an entire afternoon but it works out
quite able to get around and so this
difficult task if you call it is
compensated by even more beautiful
pictures like this one our absolute
favorite to see out in the field is the
male strawberry blonde lion coat ginger
he is not ginger ginger his ma
strawberry blonde but strawberry is not
a good name
I’m a liar Jinja has a brother called
garlic garlic is a regular lion we
always happy to see garlic he’s a lion
what’s not good it’s not good about that
anyway all of these wonderful scenes all
of these amazing experiences in the
field lead to the sad reality that we
have to live with animals are being
affected by the poaching crisis fueled
by the illegal bushmeat trade these are
not the targeted species for the
bushmeat trade we do not eat lions we
don’t eat war dogs but people are going
for deer sized antelope that they can
sell to urban areas and all those places
the methods that they use are non
selective so that means animals anything
that is of this shoulder-height this
shorter height can get in and get caught
and the impacts are catastrophic as you
can see animals die animals lose their
legs and that is just pretty sad but we
work really hard to save as many animals
as we can and working really closely
with people that are in the park all the
time helps us do what we do and these
animals I’m happy to say made a complete
recovery animals do recover even from
injuries that as gruesome as that just
going to share one story about a
particularly favorite lion of mine who
we call funny ear it’s a very it’s a
very unimaginative name for a really
beautiful lioness but funny here was a
young lioness when I first started with
a Zambian kind of a program she was
about a year and a half she stands out
because of her ear that funny ear in
2010 she picked up a snare in her
travels with her pride and it was pretty
sad but luckily the people that spotted
her and they reported to us and were
able to go there check off the snare and
she healed remarkably well and so her
story kinda ends in a beautiful business
type you know
Disney style ended she got her prints
and well couple princess cause she’s a
lioness in her prime really beautiful
and in 2015 we so funny
erase her first litter of Cubs really
amazing a graduation ceremony of some
sorts so gives us hope to keep on
pushing and keep on working and so we’ve
heard all about getting people to care
and every society every culture has a
saying that goes in the line children
are the future and we take that to heart
in our wake and we really try to work
really hard with these communities and
these students to just get them become
environmentally conscious lawyers
teachers nurses and conservation leaders
of the next generation we take students
out in the field and expose them to our
life in their natural habitat and it’s
it’s just an amazing experience and
these kids love being out in the field
they don’t want the fieldwork to stop so
it gives us hope to see that they’re
ready to learn and they’re willing to go
the extra mile and along with this
conservation education work we want to
impart skills that will empower them
going forward so it skills like public
speaking writing computers that can be
taken for granted in the developed world
and in our cities these students who
have the chance to get and sort of equal
footing almost with regards to uni
admission getting employment anything
other than poaching and so last year
with a generous support from the big cat
initiative were able to do a human
wildlife conflict study focused entirely
on understanding people’s interactions
to big cats and also other carnival’s it
was a nice opportunity for students to
get in the villages talk to people share
their conservation message but also we
found happily that there is not as much
conflict as we thought in our part of
the world but there was a lot of
negative perceptions about big cats in
general we need to get people to care
about these issues and it comes from us
all of us that are here talking to them
about experiences that we
had with these animals Alice deal middle
school right here in DC they did a
podcast on what it means to them to
conserve lions and I’m going to quote
one of what one of the students said she
said we need to give big cuts and large
predators a chance we are their only
predator they cannot survive without our
help thank you
you
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