10 Years of BIGCATS.RU / White Lions

To begin with, my congratulations on the tenth anniversary of BIGCATS.RU, written for the site:

"Congratulations to everyone involved, and not so involved, on the site's tenth anniversary. A lot has changed over these years; the site, too, keeps changing and growing as time goes on. I can't speak for the whole period — I first visited the site more than five years ago, and I registered on the forum and left my first traces almost three years ago.

It changed me as well: I learned more about these magnificent animals, I discovered the work of Joy Adamson, Gareth Patterson… I learned about the problems facing these animals and others, I wanted to learn even more about them, I started gathering information myself, and then began following the news too. I found a part of myself in all of this.

Thanks to everyone who developed and keeps developing the site, who puts something into it. These days anyone can do their bit to help the site grow. Something new is constantly happening in different parts of the world, and it's reported in news that's sometimes contradictory. New studies are carried out, information gets refined, all kinds of points of view emerge. Information about all of this is essential for the site, essential for living up to the name "the truth about big cats." Information changes the world.

So may there be more of us in the coming years, may people give more thought to the problems facing animals, and may the number of wild cats inhabiting the various corners of the globe grow as well. We need each other."

Interestingly, right at this moment a newsletter arrived from whitelions.org with a thank-you card to mark the end of the year. It reminded me that I still hadn't looked at the project's November newsletter, and after reading it I learned a few new things. As it turns out, in September National Geographic released the film "Return of the White Lion" — on its page you can download white lion wallpapers for free and watch a three-minute clip from the film. And on the GWLT site itself, it was announced on October 3rd that, for the first time in the last 14 years, white lion cubs had been born in their natural habitat. On the occasion of all this, several new photographs have appeared in Karen-Jane Dudley's gallery.