Me and Benz!
This one was right up at the front!
Obi and Oliver- the two lions that started Panthera
Okay, so for
this blog post I’m going to focus mainly on what the volunteers did Saturday
morning, the morning after the braai and the day I made my last blog post. I
didn’t mention it in that post because it was already pretty long and I felt
like this deserved a blog post of its own, so here goes. Because it was a no
sea day, Jess had arranged for the vols to spend the morning getting a tour of
Panthera Africa, which is a big cat sanctuary about half an hour outside of
Gansbaai. Panthera is one of only seven true big cat sanctuaries in South
Africa- “true sanctuary” meaning that there’s no breeding, trading, or direct
interaction between people and the animals. There are plenty of other places
that disguise themselves as sanctuaries, but really are tourist traps intending
to make money and nothing more. These places have lots of lion and other cat
cubs that they charge people to come in and cuddle with them, disguising it as
“conservation” so the tourists often don’t know what’s really going on. When
the cats get too big for that they’re moved up to the cat walking stage, where
people can again pay to go into fenced in areas and walk around with these
juvenile, tame animals. When they outgrow that, they are used for the sick
practice of canned hunting, where wealthy trophy hunters can pay to shoot it,
or are shot for the use of “traditional medicine” in Asia. These places often
keep some adult cats as well, for the sole purpose of breeding more cubs, so
the whole process can start over again. Two women saw what was happening
through working at one of these places and decided to start a real sanctuary,
where these animals would live both protected and as close to wild as they
could create. The result was Panthera. I’d heard about this place on my last
two trips here, but I’d never actually been before.
We arrived
around ten on Saturday morning and got a guided tour that lasted about two
hours. Most of the cats they had were lions, but they also had a caracal, a few
leopards including one black leopard, and a pair of tigers. Each animal had
their own story, and it sounded like they all had pretty sad lives before
coming to Panthera. The tour guide said the two that she thought had the
saddest story were two lionesses that came from the same fake “sanctuary”, and
were used as breeders, so their entire purpose was to make more cute cubs that
tourists could come and pay to cuddle with. One of the two lionesses had a
total of seven litters of cubs in only three years, which is definitely not
natural for a lion! In every case, the cubs were taken away from her at three
to ten days old. And yes, sadly, all of this is legal (trust me, we asked that
question).
All the
enclosures at Panthera were big and very natural, with trees to climb and give
shade, access to clean water, places to hide, and lots of space to move around.
There was one lioness that we all loved to watch- when our group arrived at her
enclosure, she came right up to the fence to look at us, and when the tour
guide threw in a hard plastic ball, she had a lot of fun batting and rolling it
all around the front of the enclosure. Our guide explained that she’d come from
Argentina, where she’d been owned by a circus that had closed down. The circus
hadn’t actually used her to perform, but just kept her in a cage- she loved
toys like the ball because she wasn’t used to having them! She’d only been at
Panthera since November.
We were also
introduced to Obi and Oliver, the two lions who were the first residents of
Panthera and were really the reason it opened in the first place. They’d
previously lived at the “sanctuary” where the two women who opened Panthera had
worked, and they felt a special bond with them. So, when the women found out
what was really happening and left, they promised those two lions that they’d
come back and find a way to get them out of that situation. Thus, Panthera was
created! It took about six months, and when they eventually returned to get
them, Obi was seriously malnourished- in the pictures he’s so thin he hardly
even looks like a lion. The two women said that he was in such bad shape that
they were afraid if they tried to move him now he wouldn’t even survive the
trip. It took another few months of them regularly going and bringing Obi food
for him to improve enough that they could take them both to Panthera with them.
All in all
Saturday at Panthera was a very humbling morning in which we got an unflinching
look at the horrific mistreatment and exploitation of those gorgeous cats- but
also a firsthand look at the wonderful work being done to help them. Tomorrow
morning we’re heading into Cape Town for the day to visit the Two Oceans
Aquarium and spend some time hanging out around the waterfront, then hopefully
back on the boat on Thursday. This post’s food for thought: “The worst sin
toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them;
that’s the essence of inhumanity.”- George Bernard Shaw
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