There is a list a mile long of endangered African animals, including gazelles, lemurs, hyenas, leopards, owls, snakes, toads, and more. Just looking at Lemurs, there are 39 different species of Lemurs that are currently endangered. And that’s JUST lemurs. Some of the animals that are endangered in Africa are not endangered in other areas in which they live. So why are so many animals in Africa endangered?
People are the only thing to blame for the dwindling numbers of animals found in Africa, especially the European colonists. The colonists mercilessly killed animals for meat, skin, ivory (elephants), and sometime just for sport, not giving any thought to what that might mean for the future of these beautiful creatures. They also brought European livestock, which not only competed for food with natural herbivores but which also carried foreign diseases. So, much as we saw with Africans dying from foreign diseases brought by Europeans, the same thing happened with animals. The carnivores did not have any advantage over the herbivores, however. Many carnivorous animals, such as leopards and Ethiopian wolves, were often killed out of fear. People were also quickly wiping out the gazelle, red deer, and other natural sources of food for the carnivores, meaning there was less food for them. Sometimes, they would make up for this loss of food and attack European livestock, which would then bring them foreign diseases which ended up killing them anyway.
We often hear of the genocide of Africa during the period of colonization. But what many don’t realize is that the African wildlife suffered an even worse genocide. And unfortunately for animals, it is not as easy for them to re-populate, especially since more people means less natural habitat. But there are things that people can do to help, and hunting/poaching is NOT the answer. If people stopped hunting gazelle and other herbivores, then they would re-populate, taking themselves off the endangered list. This does not mean they would over-populate to an out-of-control state. This means that there would FINALLY be enough food for the carnivores, and then they would no longer be endangered. The natural order would return. Because this is the way things were before humans came and messed everything up. It’s not right, and quite frankly, it makes me sick.And while it may be particularly bad in Africa, this problem exists worldwide. In fact, it’s even worse in the U.S. How to help:
World Wildlife Fund
Defenders of Wildlife
5 comments:
Hi Reanne,
Frederick Courteney Selous, the famous British naturalist, explorer, author and hunter, estimated that for every three elephant killed by European ivory hunters, indigenous Africans killed ninety seven. When poaching decimated elephant herds in Kenya several decades ago and rhino were wiped out there, it was Somali and Sudanese raiding parties that did the poaching. The elephant tusks supplied ivory for Asian markets and the rhino horn was made into dagger handles in Yemen.
The largest elephant populations in Africa now are in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, countries which promote safari hunting as a necessary aspect of wildlife management. The successful rehabilitation of the white rhino occurred largely on game ranches, where hunting fees supplied the much needed revenue to maintain the ranches. The same is happening now with black rhino in South Africa. The WWF often takes credit for the hard work of game ranchers and hunters.
The biggest threat to lion in Africa now, particularly in Kenya, is from indigenous farmers and ranchers who poison them.
There are more black-faced-impala and Hartmann’s-mountain-zebra (both critically endangered) on Namibian hunting ranches than anywhere else - and their numbers are growing spectacularly. (And there are more scimitar-horned-oryx (extinct in the wild) on Texas hunting ranches than in all the zoos in the world put together.)
There is much, much more to this story than you can imagine. No one cares more about or has done more for African wildlife than the African hunting and game-ranching communities. Every dollar given to the WWF and the DoW works against the future of wildlife. Every dollar spent on African hunting safaris works to ensure the future of wildlife. Please, please do better research before you take up the pen. And please ask me if you have any questions. We must all work together on this.
Be well.
Steve Gluck
The Sequitorian Society
I have done my research, and I don't agree with a single word you said. There would be no need to "control" the animal population by hunting if humans hadn't wiped out so much of their habitat.
Oh, and let's not forget that there was not an unquenchable hunger for ivory in Africa before the colonists came in and muddled everything up.
I thought you made a great analysis of the reasons for the endangerment of animals in Africa from what we have been learning.
Hi Reanne,
Yes, humans have been taking habitat away from wildlife, but not the hunting and game ranching communities. We return the land back to the wildlife. Over ten thousand farms and cattle & sheep ranches have been transformed into game/hunting ranches in South Africa alone over the past decade. There is now so much wildlife that they must be managed. It is a success story - and the NGOs have had no part in it. If you truly care about wildlife, then you should be willing to recognize the tremendous contribution that game ranchers and hunters have made in the preservation and rehabilitation of wildlife. We're the good guys.
Take care,
Steve
Post a Comment