{"id":232959,"date":"2026-05-11T16:25:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/cameroon\/cameroons-sacred-and-royal-animals-could-literature-and-futures-thinking-help-save-them\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T16:25:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:25:47","slug":"cameroons-sacred-and-royal-animals-could-literature-and-futures-thinking-help-save-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/west-africa\/cameroon\/cameroons-sacred-and-royal-animals-could-literature-and-futures-thinking-help-save-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameroon&#8217;s Sacred and Royal Animals &#8211; Could Literature and Futures Thinking Help Save Them?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"55\">In the grasslands and highlands of western Cameroon, some animals are believed to be sacred. Within the region&#8217;s indigenous kingdoms (fondoms), many of these animals are also considered to be royal. They include wild cats (like cheetahs, leopards, lions, tigers), buffaloes, elephants, porcupines, cowries (sea snails), and a brightly coloured bird called the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iucnredlist.org\/species\/22688340\/235615316\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bannerman&#8217;s turaco<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"59\">These species carry deep cultural and spiritual significance. They are, for example, often used to decorate royals (kings,&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202605110067.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 West Africa <a title=\"Cameroon\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/west-africa\/cameroon\/\">Cameroon<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the grasslands and highlands of western Cameroon, some animals are believed to be sacred. Within the region&#8217;s indigenous kingdoms (fondoms), many of these animals are also considered to be royal. They include wild cats (like cheetahs, leopards, lions, tigers), buffaloes, elephants, porcupines, cowries (sea snails), and a brightly coloured bird called the Bannerman&#8217;s turaco. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":232960,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[376],"tags":[258,256,11065,377,4331,25018,15024,257,6577,13498,7301,254,18913],"class_list":["post-232959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cameroon","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-animals","tag-cameroon-news","tag-cameroons","tag-futures","tag-literature","tag-news","tag-royal","tag-sacred","tag-save","tag-south-africa-today","tag-thinking"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}