There are some countries which are always in turmoil and
that affects not only the people, but also animals and the environment !
One of the world’s
bloodiest conflicts claimed more lives recently after the President of South
Sudan was accused of “violating” a peace agreement by unilaterally creating 28
new states.At a stroke, President SalvaKiir announced that South Sudan’s 10
existing states would be divided into 28. The government said this decree would
come into effect immediately, without requiring approval from parliament.South
Sudan has endured almost two years of civil war between Mr Kiir’s government
and a rebel movement led by RiekMachar, a former vice-president. The fighting
has claimed tens of thousands of lives and driven 2.2 million people from their
homes – 20 per cent of the entire population.
Away from political
turmoil, the landscape of South Sudan has turned a verdant green under the
annual rains, beginning one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth. At
least one million antelopes are now converging on a vast savannah east of the
White Nile.This mass movement of two species - the tiang and the white-eared
kob – rivals the wildebeest herds of the Serengeti as the biggest migration of
land animals in the world.During South Sudan’s long war for independence from
Khartoum, no outsider could be sure whether this migration was still happening.
After the fighting ended in 2005, aerial surveys discovered that vast herds had
somehow survived – and the antelopes were still travelling the same routes they
had used for millennia.
Yet South Sudan is
now enduring another war and its unique migration is threatened all over again.
At present, about a million white-eared kobs are moving westwards from their
dry season habitat in Boma National Park to the plains near the White Nile.
They will be joined in Bandingilo National Park by 125,000 tiangs, which
migrate southwards from their dry season refuge in the swamps of the Sudd
region.
Animals are not savage – it is men who are so cruel to
them and to fellow mankind. Elsewhere in a tragic and savage end,
elephants werekilled by men who were
supposed to be protecting them.A tragic report states that
elephants were slayed using cyanide in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Poachers made off with three ivory tusks
after the killings, officials said. In
Oct alone 62 elephants had been killed - lying slaughtered on the ground with
their heads barbarically hacked off, the elephants believed to have been killed
by the very men who were meant to be protecting them, shows the ugly side of
mankind. Staff at Hwange National Park
have reportedly not received their already low wages and it is feared that the
elephant killings in the park may be a form of 'protest' against management.
Horrific pictures
that are in circulation show their remains scattered across the dusty ground
after they were mutilated for their tusks. The most recent attack, which took
place earlier this week, saw 22 elephants, including babies, poisoned using
cyanide hidden in salt stones and oranges. Rangers working in the park are
notoriously badly paid for a job where they are at constant risk, fighting off
heavily armed poachers.
According to an
inside source, rangers have only just received their pay due last month and
management have failed to pay for fuel for the pumps for the park's watering
holes, The Telegraph reported.'I am afraid there are serious management
problems within parks,' an unnamed source from Zimbabwe's National Parks and Wildlife
Authority told The Telegraph.
The discovery of 22
elephant carcasses were made in the in park's Sinamatella area alongside 35
tusks, probably to cyanide said Caroline
Washaya-Moyo, spokeswoman for the parks and wildlife management authority. She
added: 'We continue to lobby for deterrent penalties for people found with
poisonous substances such as cyanide. We can't continue to lose wildlife at
such a rate.'Rangers are now investigating how many of the elephants - who
resided at the same park as Cecil the lion, who was shot dead by dentist Walter
Palmer in July - had fully developed
tusks.Speaking to the Associated Press, Washaya-Moyo said: 'We are now trying
to check how many elephants had fully developed tusks because babies are among
those killed.
The rate at which
animals are getting decimated is alarming and many other species are also dying
from the cyanide used by poachers to target elephants. Poaching is common in Zimbabwe's game parks.
Elephants and rhino are the main targets for poachers because of their tusks
and horns, which are smuggled to eastern Asian countries.Last year, more than
300 elephants died in suspected cyanide poisonings. Earlier, Zimbabwe Environment, Water and
Climate Minister OppahMuchinguri blamed a ban on elephant sport hunting by the
U.S. for increased poaching in the country.She
said'All this poaching is because of American policies, they are banning
sport hunting.'An elephant would cost $120,000 in sport hunting but a tourist
pays only $10 to view the same elephant,' she said, adding money from sport
hunting is crucial in conservation efforts.
Sad
is the plight of the animals getting killed caught between poachers and
rangers.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
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