Paw Prints in the Snow by Sally Grindley

Author:Sally Grindley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2012-01-16T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Joe thought the hike was brilliant. They warmed up in no time, so much so that they wound up carrying their coats even though there was a smattering of snow on the ground. Because of their presence, there was little sign of wildlife, but there were plenty of birds flitting from treetop to treetop and Peter was determined to photograph as many species as possible. Joe tried as well, but his camera wasn’t powerful enough to produce anything more than indecipherable shadows that could just as easily have been leaves as birds. Peter took to photographing trees too, much to Joe’s amusement.

‘I thought you were going to photograph anything that moved,’ he chortled. ‘Trees don’t move.’

‘They sway in the wind,’ his father countered, ‘and they’re home to all the birds I’ve been photographing. Anyway, I’m being very arty with my close-ups of the bark.’

Joe looked at the latest shot on the LCD screen of his own camera and wished he could be as creative. Then he spotted something in the background that even Iona hadn’t seen.

‘Look. What’s that?’ he asked. ‘There’s a face behind that bush.’

Peter and Iona stared hard at the camera screen.

‘Well, well!’ Iona exclaimed at last. ‘You’ve captured a roe deer and he’s posing beautifully for you!’

‘Fluke!’ scoffed Aesha.

‘Pure skill,’ said Joe.

He was proud of himself, even if he hadn’t known the deer was there at the time. He smiled at the thought of looking at another photograph and discovering a tiger winking at him in the background.

Iona knew the reserve like the back of her hand and took them to several spectacular viewpoints. She had brought a picnic lunch with her, which they stopped close by a waterfall to eat.

‘I can’t believe we’re eating a picnic in the snow in the middle of a forest in Russia!’ said Aesha.

‘Where Amur tigers live!’ added Joe enthusiastically.

‘Poor Joe,’ said Binti. ‘I wish we could magic up a tiger for you, but I think you’re going to have to wait till we go home and visit the zoo.’

‘I’ve seen tigers in the zoo, but it’s not the same as seeing them in the wild,’ Joe replied.

‘Zoos do very important work in helping to protect them in the wild,’ said Binti. ‘Without that work – not just in our country but overseas as well – tigers might have become extinct already.’

‘It seems cruel to keep them cooped up in a zoo just so that people can go and stare at them, though,’ said Aesha.

‘If you don’t engage people’s interest, you won’t have their support when it comes to raising funds to save an endangered species,’ Binti explained.

‘And zoos enable scientists to study animals at first-hand. Many of the animal species in reputable zoos are endangered. The role of the zoo then is to maintain a back-up population in case a species becomes extinct in the wild,’ Iona informed them. ‘Unfortunately, though, there are still too many zoos around the world that treat their animals very badly.’

‘The people who run those should be put behind bars and the animals set free,’ said Aesha indignantly.

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