My New Placement- Wildlife Heritage Foundation

As you may have guessed if you follow me on instagram (@erinkaywilliams), I have been working with some big and small cats at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation, my last placement on my placement year.

The Wildlife Heritage Foundation

My Placement
Recently I have been very busy with the Wildlife Heritage Foundation (WHF). A few weeks ago I went to an interview there about an intern role for 3 months and 2 weeks ago I got the news that I had been successful!!

WHF is a big cat sanctuary in Kent that strives towards being recognised as the best breeding centre for endangered big cats in the world which is a phenomenal mission! My placement will start with them next April which feels like ages away but I expect it to fly round.

My Photography Course
This weekend I visited the WHF again for a photography course that was a Christmas present from my Mum. We arrived onsite at 9.30. The course was taken by John Wright  of Photographers on Safari www.photographersonsafari.com. After an introduction about the best camera settings and a health and safety talk we started our day photographing with the Cheetah. On our way we were shown a piece of sheet steel that was used as an enclosure partition. It was impossible to bend or move but somehow a tiger had bent it beyond repair with puncture and scratch marks all over it. The clear strength of the animal was a reminder to us throughout the day to be careful where we put our fingers.

The whole day was brilliant, we got to get really close to so many big cats! Being 3ft away from a tiger and being so close to such endangered species was an amazing opportunity. I took 100's of pictures during the day and got to learn more about my camera which was a great experience.

WHF have so many cats including Amur Leopards, Amur Tigers, Black Leopards, Clouded Leopards, Fishing Cats, North Chinese Leopards, Snow Leopards, Pumas, Pallas Cats and many more. Getting such an up close and personal experience and the money going towards conservation makes it all the more worth while.

If you are free and in or around Kent, the WHF are having open days where the sanctuary is open to the public between 17th-20th July. It is a rare opportunity to see so many species of big cats in such close quarters and definitely not something to miss out on and tickets are only £10! to learn more about the WHF visit http://www.whf.org.uk/

Here are some of my favourite pictures taken on the day. I spent a lot of my time being in awe of the cats and so narrowing down 300 was definitely tricky.

The Oldest Big Cat

P.blytheae really was beautiful

So, as I'm a huge big cat person, (little ones are nice too) I couldn't not cover the story that the oldest fossil to date of a big cat, named Panthera blytheae, has been found in the Himalayas, Tibet, of all places.
The fossil discovery changes the belief of where cats originated from,  which was thought to have been Africa but the new finding suggests that they spread from Asia instead. The fossils  found are believed to be part of a 'sister' group to the snow leopards seen today but a little smaller with some facial features differing in size.
The subfamily group Pantherinae consists of Lions, Jaguars, Tigers, Leopards including snow and clouded leopards and the findings from the fossils discovered that the subfamily diverged from Felinae earlier than expected, around 6.37 million years ago!
The fossils were found in 2010 and there was thought to be  3 individuals present,  all of different ages.

The fact that we now have a deeper understanding of the origin of big cats is exciting but if the hypothesis that they originated in Asia is true  then it seems a sad state of affairs that the place the animals developed into such beautiful, majestic and powerful creatures is the place that is likely to drive them to extinction due to the demands for their skin, bone and livelihood.

To read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24913291
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1774/20132686 - Scientific Paper