Tanzania's Maasai battle game hunters for grazing land

[Pete]

Tanzania's Maasai battle game hunters for grazing land

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22155538

"In a remote corner of northern Tanzania, Boeing 747 planes land on a private airstrip, trucks with United Arab Emirates (UAE) number plates drive across the plains, and anyone with a cell phone receives an unlikely text message:

"Dear guest, welcome to UAE."

For centuries, the sprawling savannah in the Arusha region of the East African nation was home to the Maasai people, but these days it can feel more like Dubai, one of the states that make up the UAE......................."

Money talks in Africa and nobody cares about the little people.

[Guymullins]

The people from this region are fanatical hunters. Whether it be using falcons or rifles, they live for the hunt. Unfortunately, they have no regard for conservation at all. The Arabian Scimitar has been entirely shot out from their home desert habitat. Some years ago, a wealthy Arabian prince fenced in a huge tract of desert to serve as a new conservation/hunting area. As they had no seed herds of their own, they approached some South African game ranchers who had been keeping the species alive and offered to buy everything they had. The ranchers refused to sell the breeding herds, but did agree to sell an annual portion of the increasing herd. A contract was also signed to supply our Oryx in large numbers to the new UAE conservation area. Planeloads of Oryx were delivered to the UAE, but the stories coming back was that they were being shot as quickly as they could be supplied. I have lost touch with the organisers this side, so dont know whether the trade has continued, but this Tanzanian story seems to indicate that perhaps everything has once again been shot out and new hunting grounds are now needed. One thing I think we can be sure of, is that Tanzanian game populations will suffer greatly under people who refused to conserve even their own wildlife.

[mark46th]

Texas has a lot of ranches that raise what we call exotic species. I'm sure the Texas boys would like some of that UAE cash...

[MR2]

Originally Posted by mark46th

Texas has a lot of ranches that raise what we call exotic species. I'm sure the Texas boys would like some of that UAE cash...

I don't know if hunting UAE's is going to be legal - even if it's on a ranch.

[mark46th]

[Peregrino]

Originally Posted by MR2

I don't know if hunting UAE's is going to be legal - even if it's on a ranch.

Well - it is Texas. It wasn't that long ago that "he needed killing" was a recognized defense to a murder charge. Maybe we ought to bring those days back - only let's do it everywhere this time.

(And before the "pundits" get their panties in a wad, I'm well aware of the fact that there is no such law. There is however a whole body of case law exemplified by this appeal to the right of pre-emptive self-defense: http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/20..._ruling_on.php. Lots of fascinating reading available to those who care to inform themselves.)