High five. Give $5, and help save big cats!

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Chances are you've already heard the sad story of Cecil the lion.  If not I'll try to give you the rundown as short as possible.  Cecil was a national tourist attraction in Zimbabwe.  He was a 13 year old lion, that lived in the Hwange National Park. Meaning he was living on protected land. Then along came a dentist from Minnesota, Walter Palmer who along with his two "guides" lured the lion out of the park to shoot him with an arrow, unfortunately the arrow didn't immediately kill Cecil, and they then had to track him for over 40 hours so they could shoot him.  Cecil had on a GPS tracking collar, because he was being studied by Oxford, so they were able to find his body, but by that time he had already been skinned and beheaded.  To make this whole situation even sadder, Cecil had cubs that will most likely be killed by the next lion in line in the hierarchy.

I saw this post from Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it really stood out to me.

Stop killing big cats. Killing a lion isn't ballsy. Going into the octagon or joining the military - that's ballsy. Try...

Posted by Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday, July 29, 2015

I don't have an issue with hunting and using the meat for food, I also don't have an issue with legally hunting for population control.  I see where there is a need for that, and have no issue with legal hunting. But to kill something for "sport" really bothers me.  Especially an exotic, endangered animal.  I think lions are beautiful, magnificent creatures. But I do believe their heads are much prettier on their bodies, than on your wall, so maybe take a nice photo to hang up instead?  That's just me though.

What's really alarming is how the lion population is dwindling, and lions are endangered. In fact within our lifetime, we could see the end of lions.

The one good thing about this is it's gotten people talking.  People are starting to really take a stand and come together to protect big cats.

National Geographic has started the "High Five. Give $5" campaign to raise money to go to saving big cats.

On their website they say:

Big cats in the wild are disappearing at an alarming rate. In fact, within your lifetime, lions in the wild could disappear forever. In support of World Lion Day (August 10), we're raising money to preserve big cats—like lions—and their habitats through National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative.

Your donation, no matter how small, will make a very real difference in the lives of these majestic creatures. From building livestock enclosures to save snow leopards in Nepal to combating lion snaring and poaching in Zambia, the Big Cats Initiative provides on-the-ground conservation and education support to preserve big cat populations worldwide.

You can also donate to the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, here. They're the ones that were actually researching Cecil.

Jimmy Kimmel puts this whole situation into words way better than I ever could.

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