{"id":9158,"date":"2013-08-15T08:34:36","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T08:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9158"},"modified":"2013-08-15T08:34:36","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T08:34:36","slug":"namibia-satisfies-cubas-animal-attraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9158","title":{"rendered":"Namibia satisfies Cuba’s animal attraction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Etosha\"<\/a>
Etosha<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Namibia will airlift 10 rhinoceros and five elephants to Cuba in September, concluding a massive translocation project of 135 animals taken from its national parks, the environment ministry said Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 15 animals will be captured from the Etosha National Park in northern Namibia — one of the country’s major tourist attractions — plus a nearby smaller game reserve, the Waterberg Plateau, environment and tourism deputy-minister Pohamba Shifeta told AFP.<\/p>\n

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The ambitious project, dubbed Noah’s Ark II, has populated Cuba’s 342-hectare National Zoo outside Havana.<\/p>\n

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A total of 120 animals of 23 species — including endangered black and white rhinos, cheetahs, leopards and lions — were already transported to the Caribbean island nation in November.<\/p>\n

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Animal rights groups have protested the capture of wild animals.<\/p>\n

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But Shifeta defended the translocation as Namibia’s “token of appreciation” to Cuba for its support.<\/p>\n

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Cuba gave the southern African country political and military backing during its struggle for independence from South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n

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“Cuban people were not complaining when their government was supporting us,” Shifeta told AFP.<\/p>\n

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The donation is also aimed at helping Cuba establish a “proper wildlife programme”, he added.<\/p>\n

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Several other species including the warthog, waterbuck, wildebeest and zebra did however not make the cut for veterinary reasons, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n

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Authorities are now racing to complete the translocation by September 6.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the Namibian government has ordered over 400 springboks, kudus — another kind of antelope — and other non-endangered animals to be culled from four national parks to feed people threatened with hunger from a severe drought.<\/p>\n

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Authorities estimate that at least 400,000 people are facing hunger while Unicef has said more than 778,000 people — including 109,000 children under the age of five — are at risk of malnutrition. – AFP<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Namibia will airlift 10 rhinoceros and five elephants to Cuba in September, concluding a massive translocation project of 135 animals taken from its national parks, the environment ministry said Wednesday. The 15 animals will be captured from the Etosha National Park in northern Namibia — one of the country’s major tourist attractions — plus a … Continue reading “Namibia satisfies Cuba’s animal attraction”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,123],"tags":[5150,844,5149,5153,3108,5151,5152],"class_list":["post-9158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","category-world","tag-animal-transfer","tag-cuba","tag-etosha","tag-havana-ar","tag-namibia","tag-noahs-ii","tag-zoo"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/etosha.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9160,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158\/revisions\/9160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}