Big herbivores!

[Wolverine]

(08-25-2018, 08:05 PM)parvez Wrote:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Gorgeous image, I meditated on it several minutes. South India and more especially the area of Nilgiri mountains has probably the largest concentration of large herbivores in all the subcontinent, particullary thousands and thousands of elephants and gaurs. In terms of biomass per sq.km I think this aria is second only after Kaziranga in Assam. Suprisingly enough South India is not very well known among tourists. Dense lush vegetation of Nilgiri don't allow easy filming and spoting of big animals as in the open forests of central India. But probably there is also some other reason, because spectacular Hindu architecture of the South is also largely ignored. 

This remind the unfair distribution of safari tourism and revenue in Africa where majority of foreign tourists prefer to visit Kenya and South Africa, while countries like Tanzania, Botswana and Zambia which have 10 if not 100 times more wild animals are a bit ignored. Tanzania - this world wildlife super-power plays same role in global wildlife protection as United States and China in the aria of economy and politics. Protected arias there covered already amazing 28% of the total surface of the country:
http://www.grida.no/resources/5167
But everybody goes to Kenya. Wherever you go in Western country in touristic agency they advertise you the notorious "Kenyan safaris". What is Kenya now? Overpopulated country with almost no wild nature left and few smallish protected areas (compared with vast wilderness of Botswana, Tanzania and Zambia)  If the crowds of foreign tourists instead of overcrowded  Amboseli visit for example ignored gigantic Tanzanian Selous game reserve - largest protected area of Africa, Tanzanian government will be keen to continue with the wildlife protection. Money from tourism should be more farely distributed among countries in Africa. Guys, do not go to Kenya if you want African wildlife to exist in the future!!!

I think the mane reason for this Kenyan and South African (Kruger) obsession is the way Anglo-Saxon mind works from one and a have century. Kenya since the Victorian Age among English-speaking people is associated with "adventure" and "big game hunting". If my grand father was hunting lions in Kenya I should go also there with camera. The big game is gone but stereotype stays. Reply