Environmentalists are breeding lions in the Southern African nation of Zimbabwe(津巴布韦). The wildlife experts hope to increase the lion population to keep the great cats from disappearing.
In some areas, lions and human beings are competing for control of land. Researchers believe something must be done quickly to save the animals.
Today we take you to the Antelope Park Farm in Gweru, Zimbabwe. The main business here is lion breeding.
The African Lion and Environmental Research Trust has more than 100 lions in its breeding program. The trust is known by the name ALERT.
Gary Jones heads the Antelope Park Farm. He says ALERT has become involved because of a sharp drop in the number of lions. His group believes this has been caused mostly by humans. There are more people moving to this area every year. The lions have less land on which to live.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization says wild animals are threatened when farmers try to protect their plants or animals. Rene Czudek works for the UN agency. Mr. Czudek is the FAO official responsible for wildlife and forestry in southern Africa. He says his organization has come up with a human-wildlife tool kit (工具箱) that some countries are using to reduce conflict between humans and wildlife.
" We are trying to explain to the people what is the behavior of lions. So it is a kind of building capacity of people to evaluate the situation, land use planning, not to put their fields just on pathway of elephants or other animals. In fact, the human-wildlife tool kit is a kind of instrument that workers can use with the communities -- explain to them the behavior of wildlife, then show them what are the risky behaviors, how they should plan for their fields."
By providing information, the FAO hopes the conflict between humans and wildlife can be reduced, and that the threatened species can grow again.
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