honorable mention
Andrea Boccini italy
title
The Missing Link: Alpha Pets
But conservation is enormously expensive, in a world run by money and buisness, apex predators must be a good investment, otherwise they are just seen as a threat. So they are bred and tamed to become "Ambassadors" for the whole species: a tourist attraction, profitable for show business and trade, sacrified to fund their own conservation in bigger protected reserves. The tamed lions, raised to be in full contact with people, even if trained to hunt for themselves, will be too confident with humans to be released into the wild, so they will spend their whole life in enclosures, traded and shown to people, to raise funds and knowledge among tourists about their condition.
Conservation is a duty, too often a business and not always a salvation.
I always saw lions as kings, on the very top of the food chain and everyone else below them. The reality is now different, we took their throne, we are now the apex predator, making them our alpha pet.
"We replaced the wild with the tame".
Cit. Sir David Attenborough.
Volunteer in conservation of endangered habitats and animals in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, India.
Producer of educational contents about environment and wildlife conservation.
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entry description
With the project "The missing link" I was looking for the real bond between humans and wildife, so the research brought us in Zimbabwe, where, due to around 90% of wildlife loss, private parks and reserves such as Antelope park, are tryng to keep the population of lions and other native animals high, and reintroduce them into the wild.But conservation is enormously expensive, in a world run by money and buisness, apex predators must be a good investment, otherwise they are just seen as a threat. So they are bred and tamed to become "Ambassadors" for the whole species: a tourist attraction, profitable for show business and trade, sacrified to fund their own conservation in bigger protected reserves. The tamed lions, raised to be in full contact with people, even if trained to hunt for themselves, will be too confident with humans to be released into the wild, so they will spend their whole life in enclosures, traded and shown to people, to raise funds and knowledge among tourists about their condition.
Conservation is a duty, too often a business and not always a salvation.
I always saw lions as kings, on the very top of the food chain and everyone else below them. The reality is now different, we took their throne, we are now the apex predator, making them our alpha pet.
"We replaced the wild with the tame".
Cit. Sir David Attenborough.
about the photographer
Visual artist, documentarist and wildlife ambassador.Volunteer in conservation of endangered habitats and animals in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, India.
Producer of educational contents about environment and wildlife conservation.
back to gallery