The Great Lakes Research Journal

This article is about animal rights and how horrifying it is to watch an animal be slaughtered. In Cairo there is “an annual Muslim religious holiday when the streets run red with the blood of slaughtered sheep, cows and camels.” Amina Abaza is an animal rights activist who can not stand this holiday. She stated “islam is all about compassion, but we don’t practice it!”

Ms. Abaza has spent the last decade campaigning to stop the slaughtering of animals. Although she does not like to see dead animals and she is not a vegetarian this act is horrible. She explains how the streets were covered with dead animals, kids were playing in the blood and splashing it all over the streets while the older kids helped remove steaming entrails from the carcasses. People stood in line to get fresh cuts of meat.

This holiday is great for the poorer people because the slaughtered meat is supposed to be given to relatives and to the poor. In Egypt the price of meat has gone up and a lot of families can not afford it, so for them they look forward to this holiday. The people harming the animals have to expert training on how to kill them, they just know to lock them up in big full pens and then pretty much gut them at their own will.

The good thing about this article is that Ms. Abaza said, “once we started using the Islamic arguments, they did not attack us as much” when referring to all the protests that she has been involved in. This holiday is horrible because so many innocent animals are being killed all at once instead of when the people really need to eat. I can not relate to how the people in Cairo feel because I do not have to go outside and kill my food before I eat it, I am very Americanized so I can see where the people in both sides of this story are coming from.

Authories in Kenya claimed to have shot dead three suspected elephant poachers in two incidents this past week. Sunday night their was a “fierce” gun battle in Isiolo, said the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS). The two others were shot tuesday in the Tsavo region. KWS said, “The suspects had shot dead an elephant…and were in the process of hacking off the tusks using axes when the KWS rangers ambushed them.” According to KWS there has been a recent increase in elephant poaching  the last few years. More than 200 elephants were killed last year in Kenya as result of poaching. Tons of ivory have been seized already this year.

The Great Migration. It is one of the planet’s most breath taking and exceptional natural phenomena. This miraculous migration of over 2 million land mammals includes both hooved animals, such as Wildebeest, Gazelle, Zebra, and Eland; and herbivores, such as Topi, Impala, African Buffalo, Kongoni, Giraffe, Warthog, Waterbuck, and Elephant. This vast migration takes place on the endless Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, starting in the South and traveling North and back again. These animals follow an annual circular route around the Serengeti Ecosystem in an endless quest for fresh pastures and water. Not only do they travel over 500 thousand miles round trip for survival, they defy nature’s odds with their strong migratory instinct that defies crocodile-infested rivers, wild currents, and flocks of predators, including lions and hyenas, lying in wait.

However, Tanzania’s president, Jakaya Kikwete, has different plans for the Serengeti National Park. Kikwete has already planned and decided to build a national highway directly through the Sergengeti, directly bisecting the Great Migration route. Buses, cars, and overhauled trucks will take over this highway, undeniably effecting the wildlife and their survival methods. Scientists and conservation groups are desperately warning Kikwete of this dangerous and very serious decision; this highway has the potential to irreversibly damage the entire Serengeti ecosystem, one of the great wonders of our planet. This highway will fragment the annual migration, making the Wildebesst turn back, which will lead to a domino effect on all the other animals, causing the entire ecosystem to crash.

No matter what the effect on the Serengeti and it’s millions of wildlife, president Kikwete will not budge. His perspective on this decision is to think not of the animals, but of the people living in Tanzania. He advocates that this highway will bring about cheaper goods, bring towns together, create easier transportation to hospitals, and ultimately one day get electricity to the town. However, as all of these are great prospects for the people of Tanzania, the Serengeti National Park is what keeps this town alive. Countless people survive on the touristic attractions of the Serengeti, which gets more than 100,000 visitors each and every year, producing millions of dollars for Tanzania’s business. With a highway to destroy this precious ecosystem of wildlife, there will be less and less tourists each year, with less and less profit for Tanzania.

A national highway through the Serengeti. It is an extremely delicate situation that has the potential to single handedly enhance or destroy one of the planet’s most spectacular and precious ecosystems and way of life. This decision lies in the hand’s of one man, who the world can only hope will make the best decision for every living component involved.

According to BBC’s Science Journal a mysterious animal with a long snout and squirrel like body could very well be a new species. They are calling the new species “giant elephant shrew.”  To catch of glimpse of this animal scientists set up camera traps along the coast of north eastern Kenya. The new find of this mammal only continues to underline the importance of conservation of isolated African forests threatened by rapid coastal development.  The animal was first seen by the Zoological Society of London, unable to identify the creature they set up cameras in the area. The “giant elephant shrew” called sengi uses its long flexible snout to scoop insects. It is strangely not related to the shrew despite its name. However they do share ancestors with elephants and manatees.

I believe a discovery of a new animal is just one of many reason efforts need to be made to preserve more of Africa’s forests. The growth of coastal regions needs to be balanced with the preservation of these precious areas.