South Africans Dressed As Big Cats Conquer Everest Base Camp

South African conservationist Gareth James Legg and his team have just returned from a very successful expedition to Everest base camp where they created some incredible awareness around the plight of the world’s big cats and the environment.

During the trek the three passionate South African conservationists – who are all qualified safari guides – wore realistic custom-made cat mascots… representing the lion, leopard and tiger.

After almost a year of planning the dedicated Trek for Big Cats team has achieved their goal of reaching Everest Base Camp. The team had to muster up every ounce of energy, one paw at a time, with many factors making the challenge even tougher – high altitude, dust, thin air, fatigue and the mascots being rather cumbersome on the challenging rocky Base Camp trail.

“Our expedition, however, was a huge success, and we had a phenomenal response on the trail with trekkers and locals, as well as with local Nepalese news and media,” says Gareth.

And – as he points out – the struggles the Big Cats team faced provide “an interesting analogy on the daily struggle that the world’s big cats go through to survive in their natural environments and in captivity”.