Word: african
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...findings reported in the new paper, it's the life-span numbers that are the most shocking. Among African elephants, zoo-born females live a median of 16.9 years in zoos, while those in the wild make it to a wizened 56. Asian elephants, the more endangered of the two species, live 18.9 years in captivity and 41.7 in the wild. A few superannuated wild elephants have actually reached their 70s, and in Kenya, from 30% to 50% of the noncaptive population hits at least 50. "So far," says Mason, one of the authors of the new study, published...
Herpes, improbably, is killing elephants too - at least the Asian species. Wild African elephants are often infected with a form of herpes virus that causes them little illness or discomfort, but when the two species were brought together in zoos, the virus jumped to the Asians and mutated into a lethal form. "Zoos have accidentally created this," says Mason. "It's killing Asian elephant adults, and it's a leading cause of the species' infant mortality." (See pictures of Asian elephants...
...Kenya, on the other hand, the wildlife service has an annual budget of just $20 million to look after tens of thousands of elephants. What's more, while Asian elephants remain in jeopardy - with only about 60,000 of them left - cost-effective wildlife-protection programs have allowed the African elephant population to rebound to a robust 500,000. "African elephants are a conservation success story," says Mason. That's true enough of much of the free population; not so much for the detainees...
...Ghana A Peaceful Presidential Runoff In a rare democratic triumph on the African continent, Ghana's Dec. 7 presidential vote was hailed by election monitors for being fair and transparent--even if it didn't produce a result. Neither the ruling party's Nana Akufo-Addo nor opposition candidate John Atta Mills received more than 50% of some 8 million votes cast, meaning a runoff will be held on Dec. 28. Ghana, widely seen as one of Africa's most stable and prosperous nations, has experienced massive economic growth in the past decade. Atta had campaigned on a platform...
...1960s, Warren M. Robbins, 85, raised $13,000 and took out a mortgage to buy the former home of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. House in hand, he established the Museum of African Art with work purchased during his travels abroad...