Word: tsavo
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...Islands' considerable comforts are treated to five-star splendor inspired by a mélange of exotic themes - part Bedouin, part African, with a hint of East Asia and 19th century colonial style. Safari game drives allow close encounters with a host of beautiful beasts (just don't expect Tsavo or Kruger), and multiple soft-adventure activities are also on offer, from fascinating wadi walks to mountain-biking, kayaking through mangrove lagoons and snorkeling with coral-reef denizens - you'll probably swim with turtles and if you're lucky even glimpse the rare dugong. This is an imaginative alternative...
...write Ghosts of Tsavo (National Geographic; 275 pages), Philip Caputo went down some roads most people would gladly skip. The Tsavo region of Kenya is inhabited by a mysterious breed of lion that has no mane and eats humans as if they were Meow Mix. In one documented case, two lions stalked and killed 135 people during construction of a bridge across the Tsavo River. Joined by a rotating cast of biologists, local tribesmen and scary big-game hunters, Caputo heads into the African scrub to find the lions. This is darkest Hemingway country--the ghost of Francis Macomber haunts...
Bill Woodley killed his first elephant at 16. By 19 he had shot 150 tuskers and lived as a professional ivory hunter. Today, at 60, he is the elephant's staunchest protector, leading the desperate war against poachers in Kenya's Tsavo National Park. "They say once an elephant hunter, always an elephant hunter," says Woodley. "But I've spent the past 41 years hunting poachers." The difference, he observes wryly, is that "poachers shoot back...
...Tsavo, the country's largest wildlife reserve, was once the grandest elephant sanctuary in Kenya. Now it is a case study of what has gone wrong -- and how the elephant may yet be saved. Tsavo stretches over 8,000 sq. mi., an area the size of Israel. In the mid-1960s, 40,000 elephants thundered amid the scrub thorn, acacia and baobob trees. Last year's aerial survey spotted only 5,363 live elephants in and around the park, and 2,421 carcasses. The survivors are skittish creatures, often clustered in fear and quick to flee at the scent...
Years ago, Wakamba tribesmen poached in Tsavo, using arrows tipped with poison. Now Somali gangs, including many former soldiers, spray whole families of elephants with automatic-weapon fire. Not all Tsavo's poachers have been outsiders to the park. Some who are paid to protect the elephants -- wardens and rangers -- are also suspect. The evidence: Woodley and others have extracted .303-cal. bullets from carcasses. "The only people who use .303s are the rangers," he says. Numerous carcasses have been found near the rangers' headquarters. And when the park's patrol plane is grounded for inspection, the poachers quickly appear...