Carnivore Campaign

Carnivores are beautiful, charismatic animals. However, beauty and charisma alone are not enough to ensure their survival. Carnivores worldwide are confronted with challenges of our making. In Europe, carnivores face two contrasting groups of problems: one arising from an increase in their numbers and the other from a decline. The theme of this campaign, "Living Together", addresses both of these aspects. On the one hand, it means acting to facilitate the survival of threatened and endangered carnivores. On the other, it means learning to live with those species that are increasing in number, encroaching our territory and generating the resumption of some age-old conflicts with human interests. If carnivores are to survive in Europe for future generations to enjoy, we need strategies to integrate their presence into modern life on a crowded continent.

The campaign aims

• to make people aware of the diversity of wildlife that still survives in their own country;
• to raise public awareness about the expansion both in numbers and in range of a number of large carnivore species;
• to draw attention to the way in which our life styles and activities endanger the future of many of our rare and endangered carnivore species;
• to explain why the presence of carnivores is a good indicator of the health of our environment;
• to teach our members and the public that conservation is needed at home and not just in the far flung corners of the earth;
• to raise money in support of specific projects that facilitate "living together".

To find out more about the EAZA European Carnivore Campaign, please visit the campaign's website.