The Last of Their Kind: Joachim Schmeisser

"It all began with a gift. For his birthday, my son Konstantin received the opportunity to sponsor a small orphaned elephant named "Kibo". This sponsorship took us to a world we had never before truly imagined existed. On the other hand, I had long developed a love for Africa, and we were on our way to visit Hazda people in Tanzania and see the mountain gorillas in Rwanda. It was supposed to be just a quick stopover, to pay a personal visit to this little creature, who had found a new home at the orphanage at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi and for whom we were partly responsible. But everything changed once we found ourselves surrounded by these baby elephants, and our short travel break turned into a wonderful friendship and a terrific project. Eight years have passed since then, and this year (2017, ndlr) our godchild Kibo joined a family in the wild. The trust gave him a second chance at a life as a free, wild animal."

Excerpt from "Elephants in Heaven", published by teNeues, 2017

Widely known as the planet’s fastest land animal, the Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is also the least dangerous big cat. With an estimated population to be only 7,100 individuals left in the wild, Cheetahs have vanished from approximately 90 percent of their historic range in Africa, and are extinct in Asia except for a single, isolated population of perhaps 50 individuals in central Iran where they are protected. While they are currently listed as “Vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, scientists are calling for cheetahs to be uplisted to “Endangered.”
Indeed, Cheetahs are frequently killed by farmers, either preemptively or in retaliation for livestock predation, even though the actual damage they cause to livestock is relatively minor. They are also profoundly affected by loss of prey from human hunting and the development of land for agricultural and other  purposes. Additionally, direct hunting in some parts of Africa for skins contributes to cheetah population declines, as does the illegal trade in live cubs and adults, many of which die during transport.