World Wildlife Day is celebrated every year on March 3 since the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) on December 20, 2013, to raise awareness on world’s plant and animal species. The theme of World Wildlife Day 2018 is "Big Cats - Predators Under Threat." Keeping the theme and most importantly the significance of the occasion in mind, renowned Indian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik marked World Wildlife Day with a thoughtful creation. He designed and structured a gorgeous sand sculpture at Puri Beach in Odisha with a ‘Save Us’ message.

Being a celebrated artist, Sudarsan uses his talent and reach to highlight significant issues through mind-blowing sand models. As World Wildlife Day commences its fifth edition since inception, the sand artist from Odisha sculpted wonderful designs to raise awareness of the world’s flora and fauna as well as paying special attention to saving big cats such as tigers, lions, leopards, cheetahs and more from the cat family.

Pattnaik tweeted, “Today is #WorldWildlifeDay; one of my SandArts with message: "Save Us "at Puribeach in Odisha.” His wildlife sand art is a great mix of animals residing peacefully in natural habitat boasting of greenery, mountains and flowing river. He has crafted tiger, bear, elephant and lion in the creation.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his official message said, "On World Wildlife Day, I call on people around the world to help raise awareness and to take personal action to help ensure the survival of the world’s big cats and all its precious and fragile biological diversity." It is important for the world to come together and save the big cats from getting wiped from the face of the earth. The plummeting numbers of their population is a major worrying sign.

According to the wildlifeday.org, the world has lost 95% of wild tigers in the last century and Asian lion populations have dropped by 40% in three generations. Meanwhile, cheetah populations have decreased significantly in Africa that only 10% are found of their historic range. Sudarsan crafted a mesmerizing model of tiger out of sand to make an appeal to save these majestic predators from getting extinct. He writes, “Wildlife conservation is a shared responsibility of ours. I am sharing it with one of my old SandArts on #BigCats with the message "Save Us" at Puribeach. #WorldWildlifeDay, let's all commit to protect wildlife.”

However, all seems to be not lost for the big cats as the website informs that the population of Asiatic lions, found only in India, has increased by 27% since 2010. Big cats face threats including poaching, hunting, habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, trafficking and climate change. It is time when us humans realize that earth is not assigned to just us but learn to co-exist peacefully with every element of nature.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 03, 2018 10:52 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).