Comment on Roaring success: lions return to Rwanda, with rhinos next?

Roaring success: lions return to Rwanda, with rhinos next?

Akagera (Rwanda) (AFP) - Groggy on their paws after waking from tranquillizers, lions have returned to Rwanda for the first time since the endangered animal was wiped out following the country's 1994 genocide.Seven lions -- two males and five females -- were transported in a marathon 30-hour journey from South Africa - first by air, then the final stretch by road to Rwanda's eastern Akagera National Park.Schoolgirls sang outside the park in Akagera, a 112,000-hectare (276,800-acre) park bordering Tanzania, welcoming the predators as they ended their journey.One by one, they were released into a giant pen - where they will stay for initial quarantine of around two weeks, before being allowed out into the wild of the park itself."It is a huge conservation milestone, it is a beginning of a fantastic chapter for lions in Rwanda," Akagera park director Jes Gruner said.Lions in Rwanda were stamped out in the years following the 1994 genocide, which left an estimated 800,000 people dead.Fleeing refugees and displaced people occupied part of the park, with the lion being driven out or killed as people tried to protect their livestock."I still have the pictures of the last three lions that were poisoned...

 

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