Batian

Batian, 

the eyes of love and trust

Batian

I see your tawny hide

shimmering golden in the setting sun,

see you leaping with joy

to embrace your beloved Gareth,

who raised you to be free

in the Tuli veld.

You were beautiful,

loving,

peaceful,

padding the grassy land,

providing for your sisters

and their cubs.

Born to be free,

you enjoyed life

for three short years.

Trophy "hunters" lured you

into a trap.

You heard the recorded sounds 

of jackals eating,

you smelled meat,

hung in a tree.

You were wary,

there were no vultures;

something was not right.

But you were hungry,

and so you came.

From the blind, shots rang out,

and you fell. 

Laughter and backslapping,

as your beauty

was snuffed out.

A trophy to decorate their walls,

blood money paid,

satisfaction all around.

Now you are gone,

and one sister and her cubs are gone,

shot one year later.

Only Rafiki is left

of the Adamson Born Free lions.

Because man thinks he rules the earth,

that can never be ruled,

because he thinks, in his arrogance,

that his wants mean more than others' lives,

the lions are disappearing from Africa.

Our world and our

aching human souls

are forever diminished

by that loss.

Gareth and Batian,

murdered at age three

I am just finishing reading With My Soul Amongst Lions by Gareth Patterson, who stepped in to raise and return to the wild three lion cubs orphaned when George Adamson (Born Free) was murdered.  Those three, and their cubs, have now  all been shot by humans, except for the one remaining sister, Rafiki, with whom Gareth  had to sever contact for her protection.  (The population wished both he and Rafiki gone from the Tuli lands. He raised awareness of the lions' plight, which did not sit well with those who exploit and profit from them.)

My heart breaks yet again,  and I wept all the way through this book, with the poaching and killing and horrible arrogance of man threaded through this heartbreaking story. Gareth fights on for the remaining lions of Africa.

Thirty years ago, says an article in the Daily Mail in the UK,  there were 200,000 wild lions. Now there are estimated to be only 15,000. There are no lions left in 25 African countries, and populations are barely surviving in ten others.

We think we're here to rule the earth. But we are guests here, connected to every other life form. Eventually, we will suffer, too, the fate of other species, as greed continues to destroy this planet we love so much.


sources: The Daily Mail and The Lowveld