"What do you see when you look at me? Do you see me as a powerful beautiful animal? Do you see power? Can you sense my power, grace and beauty? Are you one of the rare few whose heart leaps at seeing me? Do you respect and honor me?

Or do you see a wall ornament ... a new rug for your den ... my bones for your folk medicines ... a commodity to be bought, sold, exploited, killed ...

You, look now into my eyes. Look deep into them. Look at pictures of me and my kind. Spend some time around one of us at a wildlife sanctuary. Get to know us. We are trying, just as you, to survive in this world. If you extinguish our fire, no longer will we grace our forests, our open grassy plains. Your children will not be able to see us except in pictures.

I am more then folk medicine. I am more then a rug on your floor. I am the strong firey essence of life! Watch me hunt! Watch me silently pad through the forest, my senses alert to every single thing in my environment. To kill the last of my kind will forever haunt you, all of you.

For the one who does it, for you I feel sad, for you know not what you do, nor what you extinguish in that millisecond when you pull the trigger of your rifle. You do not know me, so you can not understand.

I hope you will all learn soon, before the last of my kind is killed ..."

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