IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Guggisberg, C.A.W. | |
| Wild Cats and Man | |
| 1975 Book Chapter | |
History of human interaction with cats since the palaeolithic. From the accounts given of the various species it must have become evident that in his physical contacts with wild cats, man has been either a prey, a competitor, or an exploiter. To this can be added various forms of animistic and mythological relationships which have been amazingly widespread through both time and space. If we disregard the obviously very rare instances of child snatching attributed to the fishing cat, the use of man as a prey is restricted to the big cats. In this case of the jaguar it is uncommon and more or less incidental, but as far as lion, tiger, and leopard are concerned, it cannot be denied that man must be considered as a prey - a rather unusual one, it is true, although the odd individual may become a real specialist in killing humans for food. Humans who never progressed beyond the cultural stage of hunting and food-gathering have scavenged in this way until very recent times and may occasionally do so even today. In more civilized societies, however, hunting big cats came to be regarded as an exciting sport reserved for noblemen and kings. The hieroglyphic text of a famous scarabaeus tells us that the Pharoah Amenophis (Amenhotep) III, who lived from 1405 to 1367 ?.?. killed no less than 102 "fierce-looking" lions during the first ten years of his reign. |
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