Page 22 - Life In Naples Magazine - November 2015

SOUTH AFRICAN DEMAND

Although leopard coats are out of fashion
in the West, they are growing in popularity
among members of South Africa’s Shembe
community since they practice the Zulu
custom of wearing spotted cat fur during
their religious celebrations. Although trade
in leopard skins is illegal, Panthera’s Leopard
Program Coordinator, Tristan Dickerson,
estimates that nearly 1,000 leopard skins are
either worn or sold at every major Shembe
gathering. This becomes an even more
sobering number when put in the context of
the Shembe’s five million members.

PHOTO CREDIT LUKE HUNTER FAUX FURS FOR LIFE
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
LEOPARD COATS
To reduce the risk to leopards, Tristan
It’s still a thing. . . but you can help worked with digital designers and clothing
companies in China to create affordable, yet
by Tim L.Tetzlaff high quality fake leopard skin that actually lasts
longer than real furs. Through general funding
Naples Zoo Director of Conservation from visitors, members, and donors, the Naples
Zoo Conservation Fund is helping to save
I n the winter of 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy famously slipped on a Africa’s leopards by financially supporting
leopard coat. And while fur coats were nothing new, the photographs sparked a fashion Panthera’s Furs for Life Program.
frenzy. By decade’s end, fifty thousand African leopards were being killed each year to
meet the demand. But during those same years, conservationists, scientists, and wildlife Respecting the cultural traditions of the
officials tirelessly worked to build political will on a global scale to insure their grandchildren Shembe,Tristan developed strong partnerships
would inherit a world where leopards still graced the African continent. Fifty years later, with leaders of the Shembe Church, who now
the leopards we see on the Zoo’s safaris are living testament to their effort. And like our promote the use of these fake skins, which are
predecessors, we’re still celebrating successes and rising to new challenges.

Coordinating the international wildlife trade took longer than planning for next season’s
fashions. Europe, Japan, the United States, and others already had a high demand for
animal parts including ivory, crocodile skins, rhino horn, zebra hides, and spotted furs from
numerous cat species. This widespread killing prompted urgent discussions at a conference
in Tanzania in 1961 that would eventually grow into an international treaty that came into
force in 1975 as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora – or CITES (pronounced SIGH-TEES).

Today, 181 Parties work together to regulate the international trade of animal and plant
species and ensure that this trade is not detrimental to the survival of wild populations.
In September of 2016, the seventeenth CITES Conference of the Parties will bring
representatives from all these countries together in Johannesburg, South Africa. With a
grant provided from the Florida Association of Zoos and Aquariums, I will be joining these
governmental delegates as well as colleagues from zoos and conservation organizations from
around the world for this two-week working meeting. While leopards still stalk the wilds,
the global efforts to monitor their trade and that of other rare wildlife are far from over.

PHOTO CREDIT STEVE WINTER

22 Life in Naples | November 2015