From the Republic of Georgia

It's a lonely world for a big spotted cat. Georgia is what many of us would call a "small" country, having "only" 4 million humans. Yet you wouldn't think there was any shortage of humans here if you rode a bicycle 60 miles in any direction. Why, I'd bet money that you would see thousands and thousands of people every single day - so many that you would think the resource is boundless. These people all look roughly the same - 5 to 6 feet tall, four limbs, capable of upright locomotion though usually sitting on their haunches under trees waiting for the day to end - except for the old women, who stay busy hauling hay bales on their backs. I've seen so many humans here, in fact, that, sadly, the thrill I felt upon first seeing a real Georgian two weeks ago is a long gone feeling. I no longer want to photograph these folks or drink cha-cha with them.

What I really want is to see a leopard, because there is one here - one, among 5 million people and uncounted cows, mongrels, sheep and chickens. It's a lone lonely male named Noah that has multiple times triggered auto-cameras strapped to tree trunks in the scrubby Vashlovani Reserve out east. I've never been in leopard country before and to be so close to a big spotted cat is very exciting, especially for a person who comes from a state populated by several thousand plain brown pumas. Sadly, it's a relatively safe bet that an enterprising individual among these 4 million noble humans will pocket 200 lari someday after selling that leopard's skin, then get drunk on cha-cha.

The Vashlovani Reserve is also hyena, wolf, lynx and brown bear country - though two people could count all the bears and hyenas here on their hands and still have a finger left for the leopard - AND enough dexterity left to flick a cigarette butt into the nearest stream, which seems to be the fashion here. Biologists, in fact, fear the hyenas are gone. In the end, I suppose, Georgia is just another parcel of human country, with a few lonely predators clinging to existence and liable any minute to cross paths with a bullet.

All this makes me think of California, where 30-plus million humans clog the country. Yet we have 30,000 black bears in California and roughly 5000 mountain lions. What on Earth have the Eurasians done to their predators?

Anyway, there are plenty of almond and pistachio trees out here, if that starts your blood boiling at all. I've accompanied a team of germplasm collectors for a week and we've shaken many a wild tree for its nuts. We've all been wary of vipers in the grass, tiptoeing through the brush and saying, "Hey snake, hey snake" - but, secretly, I really want to be stalked by Mr. Noah.

I'm heading back west now, toward the Black Sea. I think I'll spend a week more in Georgia, then catch the next bus to Cyprus, where the people are called Cypriots. I can't wait to see one.