Word: serengeti
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Even populations inside wildlife sanctuaries are not necessarily secure. In 1994 one-third of the lions in the Serengeti died from an outbreak of canine distemper, a viral infection transmitted by feral dogs. Inbreeding, a problem on small, isolated reserves, makes big cats more vulnerable to disease. African lions, says Frank, who is also funded by WCS, "are heading toward the tiger situation in Asia--small populations in widely separated national parks. Inbreeding, disease and political instability [which has sometimes disrupted management of parks] will soon destroy those populations...
...Established in 1905 and stretching over 21,000 sq. mi., it is bigger than Switzerland and chock-full of wildlife: 4,000 lions, 110,000 buffalo, 50,000 elephants. But because it is hard to access, covered with dense scrub and lacking in the spectacular vistas found in the Serengeti to the north, it draws fewer than 5,000 visitors annually--less than 1% of tourists who visit Tanzania. To pay for the upkeep of the Selous and for antipoaching patrols over its vast area, the reserve's managers rely on another source of funding: big-game hunters. In Tanzania...
...gorge, and before supper we heard the weird call of the hyena--which means His Lordship the Lion is around somewhere...At the moment I must stop, and after sitting up here, quite alone with the wind, the moon, the stars, the whole immense vastness of Africa and the Serengeti with the mysterious universe all around and very real, creep into my bed and build up enough energy in the minute atom that is Jane for tomorrow...
Hard as it may be to imagine, 20,000 years ago--when the last Ice Age reached its climax--much of North America looked like something out of Africa's teeming Serengeti Plain. Roaming through grasslands and forests were mammoths and mastodons with huge, curved tusks, ground sloths the size of rhinos and bison with sharp-tipped horns that measured more than 6 ft. from tip to tip. Bear-size beavers roamed the forests. Large-headed llamas grazed in rocky meadows. And giant armadillos maneuvered across the landscape like living armored tanks...
...true that what the Serengeti Plain is to lions, the poshest private grade schools in Manhattan are to head lice. In recent years the head-lice problem at private schools has increased at almost the same rate as tuition, leading to the theory, not yet proved, that some of these places must be charging...