Posted on 09/07/2003 4:10:32 PM PDT by blam
Zimbabwe to kill buffalo in 'bizarre' mass cull
By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa Correspondent
08 September 2003
Zimbabwe is culling thousands of buffalo to "contain" foot-and-mouth disease in a move that has sparked protests and been described as "futile and bizarre".
Conservationists said the order was "stupid" and would kill off what was left of Zimbabwe's tourism sector, which has shrunk to 15 per cent of its former level since political disturbances began in 2000.
Salmon Joubert, a retired executive director of the Kruger National Park, which straddles Zimbabwe's borders with South Africa and Mozambique, said the decision "ranks as one of the most futile and bizarre moves that anyone can imagine".
Many other cloven-hoofed animals, such as impala and kudu, are carriers of foot-and-mouth disease, so Zimbabwe would have to exterminate all of them to achieve its goal.
Officials from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management descended on private game parks last week telling owners that the government of President Robert Mugabe had decided to destroy all buffalo on private land in order to eliminate the foot-and-mouth outbreak.
Wilfried Pabst, who owns the Save Valley Conservancy, said officials told his workers that foot-and-mouth disease had cost Zimbabwe its European beef markets. "What is happening in Zimbabwe makes the Chinese Cultural revolution look like a picnic," said Mr Pabst, a German national and a major investor in the country's tourism sector.
The National Parks officials indicated that, alternatively, the buffalo in the private game parks could be seized and taken to the government's national parks to control their movements, Mr Pabst said.
However, fences at most national game parks were destroyed at the height of farm invasions last year, leaving the buffalo there free to mix with cattle in villages. "Any sensible government would replace these fences [rather] than resort to the outrageous move of killing animals," Mr Pabst said.
Yep, that's why I decided not to vacation in lovely, friendly Zimbabwe this year. That mass slaughter of cows
hoo boy..
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.
We hadn't the heart to tell him we were just pleasantly killing time waiting for the wheel bearing to our old Passat to be ordered. We broke out the camera and took pictures of everything after that and he was quite happy again.
Better bring lots.
I don't plan on EVER going there.
What is new are consequences of the land siezure and the chaos in the agrarian sector.
Communal cattle have been admixed with commercial herds.
Cattle have been moved without clearances or safety precaustinns.
Some commercial grazing land has been over-stocked by squatters bringing in their own cattle while other parts have been de-stocked.
Fences have been stripped of the wire by poachers and squatters. (The wire makes handy nooses for the poachers.) As a result, cattle have been let into standing crops and into wild herd grazing areas where hoof-and-mouth and anthrax are endemic.
Not to mention arson of the veldt.
What is new are consequences of the land siezure and the chaos in the agrarian sector.
Communal cattle have been admixed with commercial herds.
Cattle have been moved without clearances or safety precaustinns.
Some commercial grazing land has been over-stocked by squatters bringing in their own cattle while other parts have been de-stocked.
Fences have been stripped of the wire by poachers and squatters. (The wire makes handy nooses for the poachers.) As a result, cattle have been let into standing crops and into wild herd grazing areas where hoof-and-mouth and anthrax are endemic.
Not to mention arson of the veldt.
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