| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa: Subsaharan |
| Zimbabwe to Import Endangered Tigers |
| 2005-09-15 |
| On today's episode of "The Island of Dr. Mugabe"... HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe plans to import four endangered Siberian tigers from China for the country's national park, a project condemned by wildlife experts as potentially cruel and dangerous. In an interview published Thursday in the state-controlled Herald newspaper, Minister of the Environment Francis Nhema said the tigers were in return for Zimbabwe giving China breeding animals such as zebra, elephants and impala."We do not have the tiger in this country and we would like to benefit from the exchange program with China," he was quoted as saying. "We are happy that three experts found our animal habitats friendly to the requirements that are compulsory for tiger breeding and we expect the animals would be here as soon as possible." ...and we consider them good eats. The exchange program is the latest fruit of President Robert Mugabe's Look East policy meant to promote ties with China as an alternative to the United States and European Union. The West has shunned Zimbabwe because of human rights abuses and economic mismanagement. Dr. Peter Mundy, a biologist attached to the National University of Science and Technology in Bulawayo, Bulawayo, said the tiger plan made no economic or ecological sense. That's probably why Bob insists on it. "The whole idea really is a complete load of garbage," he said. "We don't have any money to look after our own animals." Zimbabwe is struggling to protect its own endangered rhinoceros and painted hunting dog, and its cheetahs are being poached from recently expropriated commercial game reserves. "It would be cruel," Mundy said. "Siberian tigers are not adapted to anything in Hwange National Park, not the seasons, nor the climate nor the vegetation. And they would certainly be dangerous over here." Siberian tigers are native to the pine forest of the remote Amur region, seasonally blanketed in heavy snow. Hwange National Park, 500 kilometers (1,200 miles) west of the capital, has little surface water for most of the year. Prides of lion and leopards compete for prey with packs of hyena and painted hunting dog. Okay. Pretty basic. Siberia: Cold and snowy. Zimbabwe: Hot, not snowy. Dick Pitman, executive director of the Zambezi Society, which lobbies for conservation throughout the region's major river basin said "he had no problem" with the plan as long as it was confined to captive breeding, had adequate foreign funding and was run by tiger experts. Ummmmmmm...Dick? This is Zimbabwe we're talking about here. Difficulties would arise if the tigers got into the wild, he said. Yeah, but that probably won't happen, right, Dick? ...Dick?...Hello? Seizure of 5,000 white-owned commercial farms and game conservancies under Mugabe's "fast track" redistribution of land to black Zimbabweans has resulted in massive poaching, conservation experts have reported since its start in February 2000. Zimbabwe lost 3,000 black rhino to international poaching gangs in the 1980s but has fought for the right to trade ivory from its estimated 80,000 elephants. Hey, but it's Zimbabwe, so Bob gets a pass... |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #4 I doubt it. Them tigers eat yo ass when ya can't feed em. And I gots nuthin to feed em. |
| Posted by: Farmin B. Hard 2005-09-15 16:22 |
| #3 Lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my! Will we be seeing postings from "Tiger-ranching B. Hard?" |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-09-15 16:05 |
| #2 Let's see Aids is at 25%. The white farmers got run out. nobody is farming the land. Tigers are to be brought in. I think Mugabe has made a deal to deliver a relatively empty country to China to handle their population expansion. Certainly a new twist on nation building. Oh I forgot, it's been done before by giving the "Native Americans" smallpox infected blankets. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2005-09-15 14:13 |
| #1 " Siberian tigers are native to the pine forest of the remote Amur region, seasonally blanketed in heavy snow. Hwange National Park, 500 kilometers (1,200 miles) west of the capital, has little surface water for most of the year. Prides of lion and leopards compete for prey with packs of hyena and painted hunting dog. Never mind having to compete with Bob's human predators |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-09-15 13:12 |