The Disappearing Wild–Better Book Your Safari Soon: Land reform, Zimbabwe style, is not so good for the four-footed natives, reports the New York Times:

“Hunting and tourism once pumped millions of dollars into Zimbabwe’s economy each year, sustaining wildlife management programs on millions of acres of private scrubland too arid or rocky for commercial farming, but ideal for photographic safaris and big-game hunts. Zimbabwe’s decision to confiscate most of that land from its white owners, and then to redistribute it to peasants and political supporters, has had an unexpected result: thousands of hungry families on land too poor to support crops have turned to poaching as their prime source of food and income. Private wildlife programs have been all but destroyed….Precise figures do not exist. But by estimates from several conservationists, former landowners and opposition politicians, as many as two-thirds of the animals on Zimbabwe’s game farms and wildlife conservancies have been wiped out.”

Not to mention the land owners who have tried to stand their ground against Robert Mugabe’s paramilitary thugs….

Thirsty Elephants: “Hey Dumbo, maybe we should stampede Harare instead…..”

(Photo: New York Times)