On Tuesday the BBC published an article on its website about the disappearance of the West African Lion. Evidently there are now estimated to be as few as 250 West African lions of breeding age and they compete for a mere 1.1% of the areas they used to call home, the rest of their former territory having been taken, inevitably,  by man. Instead of just repeating the comments I made in my last blog I wish, instead, to make a suggestion.

As a member of the World Wildlife Fund I am familiar with their adoption programme where people pay to adopt an animal of their choice whether it be a panda, a lion, a leopard or whatever for as little as £3 per month (check it out on https://support.wwf.org.uk). I have always thought that this is both a clever way of raising revenue and also an excellent means of making people aware of the plight of the world’s wildlife. Parents often make a gift of animal adoption to their small children so that they too can learn about what is happening in the natural world.

At the moment, following the excesses of Christmas, the shops are bombarding us with ideas for the next commercial rip-off namely Valentine’s Day. Typical advertisements urge us to treat the woman/man in our lives (in some cases maybe both, who knows?) to something special this Valentine’s Day. We are urged to do the predictable stuff, like treat her to a romantic five course meal in an exclusive restaurant, whisk her off for a night of passion in a luxury spa, buy her three dozen beautiful red roses plus all the other yawn-inducing, cliché-ridden unimaginative tosh.

My suggestion is this, instead of making some fat capitalist fatter still why not give your true love a year’s adoption of her favourite animal, courtesy of the WWF? You could adopt something personal to her such as a tiger cub, a cuddly panda, or a cute little polar bear.  Indeed any creature that takes your fancy and reminds you of your her although, be careful , adopting an elephant or hippo on her behalf might not be such a smart idea!