In the Mikumi national park situated in Tanzania is a young male lion that fell into a trap that was set probably fro other animals like the antelopes. It was seen with wire snare which caught so tight around its neck, cut a very deep wound to the neck bones and can not eat any thing considering the pain that it sis going through which means, it will have to face a slow but very painful death at the end of it all. According those who have seen it, it has just a few days before it collapses somewhere in the bush gasping its very last breath.
This lion is one of the so many other lions that have fallen victims of poachers action and many of them have not managed to survive it. Unfortunately, such incidences have become so popular in African national parks and game reserves. Most of them accidently land into these traps which are set for animals from which poachers get bush meat that they sell to different people from different countries especially in Congo which other animals like the rhinos and elephants are illegally killed to get some of their body parts which are highly demanded more in Asian countries.
Currently, there is an increasing demand for the lion claws and bones in Far East which they also use in making their traditional medicines. The lions are apparently substituting the tigers which have become so rare yet their body parts were the ones used by the Chinese to market medicine in their medicine market. It is not yet so clear but the increase in the lion bone trade kind of implies that they are substituting the tiger bones so said Dr Pieter Kat, from Lion Aid. He added that 1kg of lion bones cost $10 in the 1990s but now costs $300 in 2010.
There are so many traps that are set by these poachers, cut off their parts and then sell them to the traditional Chinese medicine men. When this young male lion was seen with this wire in its neck, the park rangers tried to look for it so that they could try getting the wire out of its neck but failed to locate after it hide away in the bush. It is for sure that it will not survive for so long because the wound is already deep and covered with flies therefore will easily get infected. More to this, two more lions were found dead in the Mikumi National Park, in Northern Tanzania and the poachers had taken out their claws. Now the Tanzanian National Park Authorities have sent out anti-poaching patrols but they are not enough to patrol the all area since Tanzania has 25% of its land as conservation areas therefore police can not patrol the enter area. The SANA Project in Tanzania is one of the projects set up by the Saadani Safari Lodge to help poorer communities to develop and at the same time protect the national park areas with all the wildlife in it.
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