Looking at Lives
Angesichts des dramatischen Rückgangs von Großkatzenpopulationen und anderen Wildtieren, hat es sich Giles Clark zur Lebensaufgabe gemacht, vom Aussterben bedrohte Arten zu schützen. GREG LANGLEY berichtet.
Giles Clark has devoted his life to saving big cats and other endangered species before it’s too late
Giles Clark knows the clock is ticking for the world’s big cats. One of Britain’s best-loved wildlife conservationists, Clark has made it his life to protect as many of the world’s 38 species of big cats as possible.
Eighty per cent of these majestic animals – lions, tigers, leopards and cheetahs – are endangered. Experts believe that many species may disappear completely within ten years. Poaching, habitat loss and other environmental factors are putting ever more pressure on their rapidly falling numbers.
Clark first appeared on our televisions in 2014, when he presented the BBC programme Tigers about the House. The series followed Clark and his family for four months as they raised two Sumatran tiger cubs, called Spot and Stripe, in their Australian home.
“Cats – I love them all,” Clark said. “They’re the most successful of the carnivore family.” Millions of viewers watched enthralled as the two cubs chewed and clawed their way through the furniture and kept the family dogs on their toes. Meanwhile, Clark, his wife, Ceri, and their son, Kynan, calmly dealt with the chaos.
Clinging on by their claws
At the time, Clark was the head of Big Cats at Australia Zoo, in Queensland, and looking after the tiger cubs had a serious purpose. Only a third of Sumatran tigers born in captivity live long enough to become adults. Clark wanted to give his two cubs the best possible chances of survival – but also to highlight the dangers facing Sumatran tigers, one of the most at-risk species of all the big cats. It’s estimated that there are only 500 of these tigers left in the wild – all of them on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Unless there’s a dramatic change, it’s likely the Sumatran tiger will follow the Bali and Javan tigers – two species already driven to
extinction. Since 2007, the Australia Zoo has worked with the Indonesian Forestry Ministry to help conserve the Sumatran tiger and other endangered species.
Clark’s work with Spot and Stripe raised money and awareness for the tigers, particularly for those in the Kerinci Seblat National Park, the largest on Sumatra. It spans almost 14,000 square kilometres of tropical rainforest and is one of the most important areas in the world for tiger conservation.
Awe-inspiring and magnificent
Clark grew up in the UK, in Middlesex, and fell in love with big cats while volunteering as a 14-year-old at Paradise Wildlife Park in the neighbouring county of Hertfordshire. There, he met Bruno, a fully grown Bengal tiger. “That was it,” he recalls. “I was hooked, and it ultimately led to what I do now. This job is a dream come true.”
There’s a photograph of Clark aged 17 with Nikka, a tiger cub, nestled between his legs, while Mana, a grown lioness, licks his head. Mana has her eyes closed and seems blissfully content. Clark’s eyes are also closed, but the look on his face says that whatever other benefits the job offers, a cat bath is not one of them. From then on, however, it became Clark’s passion to work as hard as he could to protect big cats.
Reflecting in 2018 on a career that has taken him around the world, Clark commented: “One opportunity has always led on to another. Some of it is definitely luck but that’s not all of it – I’ve pushed incredibly hard, and made sacrifices to get where I am.”
During his 13 years at Australia Zoo, Clark and his team raised well over €1 million to protect the Sumatran tiger. They also looked after nine of these tigers at the zoo. The team had a unique approach, forming a hands-on relationship with the animals. Clark believes that close contact, through daily walks and play, improves the tigers’ quality of life.
“The tiger is for me the most aweinspiring, magnificent creature that has ever walked the planet,” explains the 41-year-old about his love for tigers. Tigers may have a fearsome reputation, but for Clark, the cats are like family. “They’re all different, they all have personalities and characters.”
Finding sanctuary
In 2015, Clark followed his successful BBC programme with another series, called Tigers about the House: What Happened Next. In the programme, the family guided Spot and Stripe to young adulthood, while also travelling to Indonesia to see how the jungle can be saved, and visiting animal rescue and rehabilitation centres.
Clark’s next BBC television project began in 2016, as co-presenter of the four episodes of Ingenious Animals. This coincided with his return to the UK, where he became director of the Big
Cat Sanctuary in Kent, in the southeast of England.
The Sanctuary, a former farm on 34 acres, is home to more than 50 species of cats, as well as various smaller species. The animals are either part of international breeding programmes or have been rescued or retired, and are living out their days at the Sanctuary.
“Our ambition is to grant them the best life possible,” says Clark, explaining that the Sanctuary is not a traditional zoo. Only limited numbers of visitors are allowed on-site at any one time, as part of carefully managed tours.
Like many ecologists, Clark fears that an ecological genocide is taking place on a scale of extinction last seen 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs were wiped off the planet. Lions, for example, have vanished from over 95 per cent of their historic habitat. They’re now extinct in 26 African countries, and experts estimate that there are only about 20,000 living in the wild today.¹
Or take tigers. Nowadays, there are more tigers in captivity in the US than in the wild around the world.² The plight of the Amur leopard is even more extreme. Worldwide, there are fewer than 100.³ Three of them are to be found at the Sanctuary.
In Clark’s ideal world, there would be no Sanctuary. But he says the Sanctuary is necessary to ensure the survival of these creatures. “These animals should be in the wild, they belong in the wild, but this, unfortunately, is the result of the situation they face in the wild,” he explains. “The true and only justification I have for keeping them is to make sure they are supporting their wild counterparts.”
“These animals should be in the wild, they belong in the wild. But this is the result of the situation they face in the wild”
A secure future
Apart from his position in Kent, Clark travels around the world working on projects where the welfare of wild animals is the top priority. He also continues to use his media profile to shine a spotlight on them.
In July 2020, he presented the BBC programme Bears about the House, highlighting the illegal trade in bears and helping to build a new bear sanctuary in Laos. During the filming, Clark visited a market that illegally traded in wildlife. It wasn’t his first visit to such a market, but it was still a harrowing experience.
“Nothing can prepare you for the moment you see a wildlife market for the first time,” writes Clark on his website. His first visit had been more than 20 years previously, in Sumatra. “I remember standing in the street and seeing row upon row of cages, stacked metres high and all stuffed with animals. … Hearing their screams and with tears in my eyes, I asked my host, ‘What on earth are all these animals doing here?’ His reply: ‘Some are wanted as pets and others will be eaten as exotic food or used in traditional medicines.’”
The eating of wildlife, Clark notes, has become a perverse demonstration of prosperity in some parts of the world. As heartbreaking as the experience was, it only increased his conviction to save big cats.
As Clark explains: “For the last 20 years, I have lived and worked with cats in captivity and with them around the world. I believe they and the animals that share their habitat deserve a place on our planet. I urge us all to do whatever we can think of to help secure a future for them. … If we can’t save the big guys, we’ve got no hope with the little ones!