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Why do humans owe a lot to the wild cats?

‘Did the humans come from the apes or were they created by god?’ every one of us would have come across this debate at least once in our lifetime. During my school days we had this topic for group discussions and I was the one who was always on the side of the apes and the judges often ruled in favor of gods, after a brief spiritual explanation to their verdict.

My fellow mates in the school would often ridicule most of my comments on this topic and this made me to delve in depth in ‘Human Evolution’. After many years of studying and researching materials in this topic, I have realized that the best thing that has helped me in understanding humanity more is indeed ‘Anthropology’ and not ‘Religion’.

The plight of wild cats around the world in recent years hurts me a lot. Are we not giving enough respect to these animals, which they deserve? They are the one’s who assisted in the evolution of modern humans and we are ones who remain as a greatest threat to them today.

Many readers might wonder how wild cats could have influenced the development of modern humans and it is my responsibility to explain them how?

All our ancestors had a tough time with the wild cats in the plains of Africa, as the wild cats were at top of the food chain then. Australopithecus africanus (the direct ancestor of modern humans) was a prey to wild cats and they were the ones who really got ‘Social’ (gathering in numbers to deter an attack by the wild cats) to escape predation. They were the first ones to use simple tools like rocks and woods to defend themselves from the wild cats. Other ancestors of modern human like the Homo habilis and Homo erectus too, had to compete with the wild cats for their food and their brain started to develop in this ‘Inter specific’ struggle with the wild cats.

During the Ice Age both the ‘Neanderthals’ and the ‘Modern Humans’ had a torrid time with ‘Saber toothed’ cats like ‘Smilodon’ that preferred humans for dinner than the much bigger antelopes and the ‘Mammoths’ that grazed the vast areas of the ice-covered Europe and Asia. Humans invented tools to protect themselves from these wild cats and this ‘Inter specific’ struggle with the smilodons created a survival pressure on the humans, which was over come from by the development of Intelligence. We were made ‘Intelligent’ by those wild cats that roamed this world alongside of our ancestors.

The struggle for dominance between the ancient humans and the wild cats continued for ages together with the humans winning the battle just a few hundred years ago. Today as a dominant species on top of the food chain we hunt down these great animals in the name of sport, medicine etc., forgetting the fact that the ancestors of these wonderful cats hunted humans only for food and not for sport and if they had done so, we would not have had the chance to see these wonderful animals, which were really created by nature to be the 'Kings'.

Respect these lovely beings, be them the Tigers of India and Russia, the lions of the Africa, the Jaguars of the South America, the Kruger’s of North America or the leopards of South East Asia. Driven to the verge of extinction by humans, these are the last of our masters who once ruled us, when we were novices in the face of this planet.

Don’t hunt for sport and do not buy any products made from poaching these lovely creatures and it is the only way in which we can show our gratitude to them or else we would be killing the ‘Gods’ who created us.

A.K.Siva

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