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Alison Buttigieg, fotografer profesional telah memenangkan penghargaan sebagai 'Best Pictures' dalam tingkat dunia dalam dekade saat ini. Berjudul 'Cheetah Kill', foto berobyek binatang seekor rusa yang dibunuh oleh kawanan cheetah.

Foto yang diambil di Maasai Mara, Kenya, pada bulan September 2013 tersebut, dimanipulasi caption-nya oleh oknum netizen. Dishare di media sosial dan menjadi viral karena dibumbui dengan kalimat seperti ini,

Tahukah cerita di balik foto segerombolan cheetah yang nampak memangsa induk Rusa dengan tatapan mata yang sangat tenang itu?

Foto tersebut adalah hasil jepretan dari seorang fotografer asal Kanada.
Foto ini berhasil memenangkan award untuk kategori best foto dekade tahunan di Jepang.

Cerita di balik foto ini, yaitu : rusa yang Anda lihat adalah seekor rusa betina yang memberikan dirinya mati dimakan cheetah.

Alasannya, karena awalnya cheetah mengincar kedua anaknya, si induk yang tahu akan bahaya pada kedua anaknya berusaha menarik perhatian cheetah-cheetah itu sampai dia harus merelakan dirinya dimangsa, agar fokus cheetah tertuju padanya sehingga kedua anaknya bisa lolos.

Si induk rusa ini tak terlihat sedikit pun melawan, memberikan dirinya dimangsa sampai kedua anaknya terluput. Si induk rusa hanya terlihat tenang sambil matanya terus mengawasi kedua anaknya yang terus berlari meninggalkannya.

Sebagai manusia yang memiliki perasaan dan pemikiran, sudahkah kita berani berkorban untuk orang orang yang kita cintai? Memberikan yang terbaik bagi mereka tanpa mengharapkan balas jasa?

Tidak perlu sampai mengorbankan nyawa, dapat dimulai dengan memberikan waktu kita untuk mereka, mendengarkan mereka disaat mereka membutuhkan kita, membagi kebahagiaan dan kesuksesan kita?

Berguna untuk orang lain nilainya jauh lebih berarti daripada berguna hanya untuk diri kita sendiri.....

Dilansir dari situs thenewsminute.com, informasi tersebut adalah HOAX alias palsu. Pernyataan tersebut juga diperkuat oleh pernyataan fotografer tersebut pada blog pribadinya di alisonbuttigieg.com.

Berikut ini artikel aslinya dalam bahasa Inggris,

Shed tears over the impala who faced cheetahs to save her babies? Read the true story

A photograph of an impala under attack by a group of cheetahs has been doing the rounds on social media along with a moving story about the picture.

This is the circulated message verbatim:

This photo won the award for the best photo of the decade and led the photographer into depression.

The Cheetahs chased a mother deer and her 2 fawns (baby deers), the mother could've easily outrun Cheetahs but instead she offered herself to Cheetahs so that her kids to run to safety. In the picture she is seen looking at her baby's running safely as she is about to get torn into pieces. #MothersLove Picture Credit : Allison Buttigieg

Many users shared the picture as proof of a "mother's love". However, when several people messaged Alison Buttigieg, the wildlife photographer who lives in Finland about the image, it was revealed that the story was false. While the photograph she took was genuine, the spin given to it was the figment of someone's imagination gone wild.

Writing on her Facebook wall, the photographer said that this was "sensationalism at its best". She went on to say that she was inundated by messages asking if she was the "depressed photographer". Alison also directed people to her blog where she'd written about the photograph (and others in the same sequence) before it went viral.

Here's the thing: the picture is very much about motherhood, but not the impala's! The picture shows a mother cheetah teaching her young how to kill prey. The impala's "calm" look which was interpreted by earnest humans as "martyrdom" was actually paralysis due to fear and shock, Alison says.

You can read her description of the hunt here.

The typos in the story, factual errors (that was an impala, not a deer) as well as the rather vague "picture of the decade" award ought to have warned social media users that the story was fake but the "interpretation" was just too touching for most to interrogate its authenticity.

Speaking to DNA, Alison said, "It is not true that I suffered from depression - it was just lies so that some people get more likes on their page. People steal photos all the time to get attention, but this was very rude and hurtful."

Did any good come out of this? Apparently, Alison has gained a LOT of Indian followers this week because of this picture!

Pernyataan tersebut diperkuat oleh tulisan fotografernya sendiri dalam laman pribadinya di alisonbuttigieg.com,

Berikut ini tulisannya,

Cheetah Kill

I witnessed this Cheetah kill in September 2013 in the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Narasha, the cheetah mom, was teaching her youngsters how to kill prey. However they were a bit slow on the uptake and they were playing with the hapless Impala prey instead of killing it. Narasha, the cheetah mom is the one that is grabbing the impala by the neck in all the photos. The youngsters practice some skills like pouncing and tripping which they get right, but they cannot seem to be able to get how to strangle the impala effectively.

What is out of the ordinary in this sequence of photos is how calm the impala is throughout its ordeal. It is probably in shock and thus paralysed with fear. It is disturbing how it seems to be posing in some photos, especially in the 6th one as if determined to stay beautiful and proud until its very end. The defiance in its eyes are in stark contrast with its lack of interest in self-preservation. This allowed me to get unique pictures of a kill that are seemingly choreographed in their grace. I wanted the viewer to sympathize with the impala, and at the same time witness with me the disturbing nature of this unusual kill.

In the end, after what seemed like an interminable eternity (but it was just a few minutes), the cheetah mom put the impala out of its misery, and the cats got to enjoy a nice meal.

Foto-fotonya ada di bawah