Our relationship with big cats is paradoxical. Leopards, lions, tigers, cougars – they all exemplify a lithe, deadly form of beauty that has transfixed our species from the time Pleistocene artisans immortalized their shapes in stone and ochre. They are both totems and terrors. Big cats are used to sell everything from gasoline to breakfast cereal, and an innumerable number of sports teams have chosen large felids for their mascots, yet the thought of catching that glint of eyeshine in the dark just before the fatal pounce is enough to send shivers down our spine. We value them for their majesty, just so long as that majesty is preserved somewhere far off where it cannot