FEBRUARY 19, 2006
Many
of us have delighted in the magical production of Lion King, and rightly so, for the costuming is spectacular, the music stirring, and the story captivating. However, the real world story of The King of Beasts is becoming more and more tragic daily.
Good friends of ours just returned from a safari to Africa. We had a chance to talk about what they saw, what they learned, and how concerned they are about the future of Africa's King of Beasts.
Throughout Africa, and in particular Kenya bush meat is becoming popular. The killing or trapping of wild animals is legislated against, but illegal snares trap animals and hold them until the hunter poacher comes back to finish the job and cut up the meat. The meat is then sold in exotic, often clandestine markets. Zebra, antelope and a host of other migratory species are now fair game for man as well as lion, and the lions are losing. The search for food is part of the lions daily ritual, but their normal hunting grounds are disappearing and they have been forced to move further and further into civilization.
One of the few television programs that educate me on a regular basis is called National Geographic on Assignment and recently I witnessed in horror Masai warriors sever the neck of a lion and hold the head as if it were a trophy. Because of habitat loss and bush meat kills whole tribes of lions are being forced to go after domesticated cattle, sheep and goats and the local Masai are angry. Rather than tranquilizing the big cats and moving them to more fertile hunting grounds, the Masai have killed 10 of the remaining 20 cats in the park where they live; all in the last two months.
The question arises time and time again: Why must the human race kill everything that is bigger than we are? Whales, elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, blue fin tuna and the list goes on and on. One day we will wake up and we humans will literally be the biggest creatures on the planet. Somehow that does not sit very well with me. In the meantime, keep the lions of Africa in your thoughts for their life is truly a jungle of survival today.
--Peter