Mozambique is a
country located in Southern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean, Tanzania, Malawi,
Zambia, Zimbabwe, Eswatini (Swaziland) and South Africa. The capital and
largest city of Mozambique is Maputo formerly known as "Lourenço
Marques".
Between the first and
fifth centuries AD, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated to present-day Mozambique
from farther north and west. The voyage
of Vasco da Gama in 1498 marked the arrival of the Portuguese, who began a
gradual process of colonisation and settlement in 1505. After over four
centuries of Portuguese rule, Mozambique gained independence in 1975, becoming
the People's Republic of Mozambique shortly thereafter. After only two years of
independence, the country descended into an intense and protracted civil war
lasting from 1977 to 1992. In 1994, Mozambique held its first multiparty
elections, and has since remained a relatively stable presidential republic,
although it still faces a low-intensity insurgency.
For decades
a forgotten corner of Mozambique, Cabo Delgado has now become the country’s El
Dorado, promising billions in natural gas and gemstones but delivering its
population only violence and displacement. An insurgency in the province now
threatens to become further entrenched – 50,000 people have fled their homes
since March and Mozambique’s neighbours are currently debating sending in
regional forces to help defeat militants who seized a strategic port in the
town of Mocímboa da Praia last month.
The fear is
that such an action could alienate a population with serious grievances,
despite the chaos caused by Isis-linked militant group Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamaa,
known locally as al-Shabaab (though it has no links with the better-known
Somalia-based Islamist militant group of the same name). Cabo Delgado has spent
decades underdeveloped. Even past decade’s dual discoveries of $50bn (£38bn)
worth of natural gas and rubies that sell for hundreds of millions of dollars
brought only displacement and misery for local people.
Those who have fled Cabo
Delgado in the past six months take the total number of people displaced in the
region to more than 200,000 (10% of its population) since 2017, when Ahlu
Sunnah Wa-Jamaa launched an insurgency. More than 1,000 people have been killed
in the past three years. The latest attacks have added to an already desperate
situation for residents, still trying to recover from the destruction caused by
last year’s Cyclone Kenneth. More than a fifth of people do not have enough
food. Many are forced to seek shelter with relatives and stretch shared
resources. Prices for fuel and staple foods such as rice and maize have
increased. The fighting this year has seen many humanitarian groups withdraw
from the region. Agencies say they can only access some of the worst areas by
air, river or sea, and that rural areas have been all but abandoned because of
Covid-19. This
is no post on civil strife in Mozambique but on transit of wild dogs to the
place !
Founded in 1998, The
Bateleurs is a Non Profit Company (NPC), with over 200 volunteer pilots and
aircraft. It provides its beneficiaries and the public with an aerial
perspective of the environment and has coordinated several, diverse missions,
throughout South Africa and Africa, in support of environmental issues.
The African
wild dog is known by many names, including Cape hunting dog or painted dog. Its
scientific name, Lycaon pictus, means “painted wolf,” referring to the animal's
irregular, mottled coat, which features patches of red, black, brown, white, and
yellow fur. Each animal has its own unique coat pattern, and all have big,
rounded ears. These long-legged canines have only four toes per foot, unlike
other dogs, which have five toes on their forefeet. It is the largest indigenous canine in Africa,
and the only extant member of the genus Lycaon.
, It is estimated that about
6,600 adults including 1,400 mature individuals live in 39 subpopulations that
are all threatened by habitat fragmentation, human persecution and outbreaks of
diseases. The African wild dog is a
highly social animal, living in packs with separate dominance hierarchies for
males and females. Uniquely among social carnivores, the females rather than
the males disperse from the natal pack once sexually mature. The
species is a specialised diurnal hunter of antelopes, which it catches by
chasing them to exhaustion.
In a post titled ‘let
sleeping dogs fly!’ MailOnline featured a story in Nov 2019 on a pack of 15 African wild dogs sleep on plane as
they are flown 1,000 miles from South Africa to a new life in Mozambique. Pilot Raymond Steyn flew 15 African wild dogs
to their new life in Mozambique in a light aircraft in a mission of Two
charities - The Bateleurs and the Endangered Wildlife Trust – which hope the dogs will breed in Mozambique
The Mozambican Civil War
from 1977 to 1992 wiped out over 70 per cent of the country's animal
population. The charities have
transported 60 wild dogs between countries with a '100 per cent safety and
success rate'. This time it was pack of
15 African wild dogs which slept through a 1,000 mile journey from
South Africa to their new life in Mozambique, lined up neatly next to one another, the
family of canines were ideal passengers for the seven-hour journey. The
plane flew the dogs over 1,000 miles from South Africa in the hope of
repopulating an animal population decimated by Mozambique's civil
war. All of them, flown by volunteer pilot Raymond
Steyn, made it safely to their new home in Gorongosa National Park, in
Mozambique.
When a volunteer went to Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park as part of an ambitious wildlife restoration effort, she was happy that Beira, the alpha female of the pack, had been pregnant when the dogs were set free. She knew that the closely bonded and highly endangered apex predators had dug a maternity den for their queen, and that Beira had spent a lot of time down there — until one day, she didn’t. She and the pack had moved on. As Ms. Bouley was crouching by the abandoned den and peering into the hole, she met the likely answer. A giant African rock python — the continent’s largest species of snake — dropped from a nearby tree, stared her in the face and then slithered off.
18.09.2020.
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