{"id":1561,"date":"2018-03-03T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-03T10:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/?p=1561"},"modified":"2018-02-27T10:30:41","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T10:30:41","slug":"worldwildlifeday-big-cats-predators-under-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/2018\/03\/03\/worldwildlifeday-big-cats-predators-under-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"#WorldWildlifeDay &#8211; Big Cats: predators under threat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wildlifeday.org\/\">World Wildlife day<\/a> aims to celebrate and raise awareness of the world\u2019s wild plants and animals. The theme for this year is <strong>Big Cats: predators under threat<\/strong> and aims to highlight the ecological importance of charismatic creatures such as <strong>cheetahs, jaguars, leopards and lions<\/strong> and promote their conservation and survival in the wild.<\/p>\n<p>Humans have always been fascinated by these animals as is made clear by their influence on high fashion, fast cars and sports teams the world over. However they are becoming increasingly rare due to human-led activity such as <strong>poaching<\/strong> and <strong>deforestation<\/strong>. Conflict often occurs between humans and big cats due to <strong>lack of prey<\/strong> such as deer for the animals. This can cause the big cats, such as tigers, to predate on livestock, causing humans to poach in retaliation to protect their livelihoods.<\/p>\n<p>Collectively, big cats are under threat and many species are classified on the <strong>International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List<\/strong> as being <strong>endangered<\/strong> or <strong>critically endangered<\/strong>, meaning the range they inhabit in the wild is getting smaller and their population sizes are rapidly declining.<\/p>\n<p>Many efforts exist for conserving these animals, including <strong>breeding programmes<\/strong> in captivity, maintaining <strong>protected areas<\/strong> to prevent poaching, and projects such as World Wildlife Day increasing awareness of the threats to populations.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wildlifeday.org\/\">World Wildlife Day website!<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1562 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/files\/2018\/02\/world-wildlife-Day-tiger-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"626\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/files\/2018\/02\/world-wildlife-Day-tiger-copy.jpg 626w, https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/files\/2018\/02\/world-wildlife-Day-tiger-copy-196x300.jpg 196w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 626px) 100vw, 626px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World Wildlife day aims to celebrate and raise awareness of the world\u2019s wild plants and animals. The theme for this year is Big Cats: predators under threat and aims to highlight the ecological importance of charismatic creatures such as cheetahs, jaguars, leopards and lions and promote their conservation and survival in the wild. Humans have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/2018\/03\/03\/worldwildlifeday-big-cats-predators-under-threat\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">#WorldWildlifeDay &#8211; Big Cats: predators under threat<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2636,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[18,43,353,16,352,27,351,15,142],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-animals","tag-biology","tag-conservation","tag-environment","tag-lions","tag-science","tag-tigers","tag-wildlife","tag-zoology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2636"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1564,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/1564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/stem\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}