Zimbabwe's wildlife decimated under Mugabe

[DesertFox]

Wildlife has been nearly wiped out on Zimbabwe's former private game ranches in the seven years since President Robert Mugabe began seizing and dividing the areas into small plots, a conservation group says.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/images/070801-zimbabwe-animals_big.jpg

Zimbabwe is home to many tourist draws, including the spectacular Victoria Falls and teeming herds of elephants, such as the one seen here at Hwange National Park.

But the country also has the world's highest inflation rate—causing such widespread poverty that hungry villagers and poachers have nearly wiped out the country's animals in some areas.

Harry Reid is working hard to find a way to blame all this on George W. Bush.

Some 90 percent of animals have been lost since 2000, while the country has seen an estimated 60 percent of its total wildlife killed off to help ease massive economic woes, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force said in a report issued in June.

"[The animals] are being killed indiscriminately," said Johnny Rodrigues, the author of the report. "There's a lot of commercial poaching, there are people on the ground snaring these animals. This is where a lot of the destruction is coming from."

More (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/98888281.html)

[DeclinetoState]

The people there are hungry, and those animals on the game preserves can fill a lot of empty stomachs--for a while. But when they're all gone, what will the people have to eat?

Mugabe's policies have been a disaster, but who's condemning him?

[Beowulf]

Mugabe's policies have been a disaster, but who's condemning him?

Amazing how the U.N., Bono and other activists sit strangely silent.