Freak Specimens

[Spalea]

Michel Zoghzoghi: " Prey

Beauty, innocence, power. These are the three qualities that for me define the fascination of predators. Yet to many people they will sound like contradictions. Few would deny the beauty of the big cats, nor the elegance of their movements, perhaps without recognizing that much of their beauty lies in their power: they are perfectly put together, perfectly co-ordinated hunting machines. A bird of prey plummeting on to its quarry; a great white shark powering through the oceans – these are magnificent creatures, beautiful in their efficiency and dominance over their environment.
But innocent? Yes. The most powerful predator, be it a tiger or a polar bear, can be incredibly tender with others of its kind. It is impossible to be indifferent to the dedication of a mother who struggles against all the odds – a pitiless climate, a diminishing habitat, a territory full of dangerous rivals – to raise her cubs. She sacrifices everything, sometimes for years, to ensure that they reach adulthood and can embark on the same struggle themselves. It is absurd to attribute human motives such as viciousness or cruelty to these animals. That is not why they kill. Predation is their nature, their very essence. They do it in order to survive.
In this book, I want to show how magnificent predators and the nature they live in are. But I also want to alert people to the fact that every species portrayed here is endangered and most are on the brink of extinction. I want everyone who looks at these images to feel the urge to do something about it.
We have no right to imprison or to exterminate other species. It is their planet too."

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