Word: zambezi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...country," says Bentsen, as he pulls off the highway onto a sandy dirt road. Suddenly you are in south Texas as it was before the developers paved it over. In a soft morning fog, a visitor might mistake the silvery mesquite thickets and rough grass clearings for Africa's Zambezi valley...
...Stronghold, as the policy is known, was approved by Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in mid-1985, when less violent attempts to arrest poachers proved ineffective. Most of the rhino hunters cross the border from Zambia. Rangers try to stop them without bloodshed, insists Blondie Leathem, 29, who coordinates the Zambezi Valley patrols, but "trying to arrest a man with an AK-47 is like trying to grab a lion with your bare hands. We must often shoot first to protect our lives...
...coming, and parks officials admit that they are in a losing battle. Their only hope is to slow down illegal hunting in order to buy time for two other efforts to save the rhinos. One is capturing and moving as many of the animals as possible away from the Zambezi Valley to safer sanctuaries. The other involves an international campaign of diplomacy and media pressure to shut down the trade in rhino horn...
Meanwhile, Zimbabwean rangers have been capturing Zambezi Valley rhinos and moving them away from the war zone. Since 1984 the teams have relocated nearly 240 animals to safer game reserves and fenced-in ranches. On one recent morning, Warden Clem Coetsee, head of the capture unit, set out with his men to bag their 75th rhino of the three-month dry-weather capturing season. Armed with a heavy darting rifle loaded with nerve-blocking tranquilizer, he spotted a rhino cow, moved into range and took careful aim. The dart hit the beast's shoulder with a thwack. She snorted...
What if the Zambezi Valley proves to be the rhino's Little Big Horn? Conservationists fear that more is at stake than the possible extinction of a fascinating relic of animal antiquity. "The rhino is a symbol of all endangered wildlife," says Chief Warden Tatham. "If we lose the rhino, will the elephant be next? And after the elephants are gone, will we lose the rest of the game? This is a war we simply must...