Rule meant to save exotic antelope will hurt species, ranchers say
March 30, 2012
Houston Chronicle
By Tony Freemantle
Its horns, sometimes up to 4 feet long, arc gracefully over its back, almost reaching its hindquarters when it lifts its head to sniff the wind. Vast herds of them once roamed the semi-arid plains of North Africa and the Sahel, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.
It was named in an inscription on the Egyptian tomb of Sabu of Sakkarah nearly 23 centuries ago, and is thought to be the inspirational template for the unicorn.
In 2000, after finally succumbing to hunting, loss of habitat, climate change and war, the scimitar-horned oryx was declared extinct in the wild.
But not in Texas, where it has returned from the brink and now thrives in greater numbers than anywhere on Earth, and where it finds itself at the center of a modern, protracted new battle for survival.
That battle is lost next Wednesday, Texas ranchers fear, when the scimitar-horned oryx and two of its African cousins - the addax and the dama gazelle - officially receive full protection under the Endangered Species Act.
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2 Comments
On April 1, 2012, D. R. Staker wrote:
The article in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, March 31, 2012, regarding the slaughter of exotic animals in Texas is sickening at best. The fact that Charly Seale, the ‘director’ of some wildlife association there is saying that he is ‘conserving a race’ of an exotic species is completely delusional, since he charges a mere $10,000 to come in and corner one of the Gazelles to shoot it. Bravo Charly, do you sleep well?
I grew up on a ranch in Texas which was a game preserve with no hunting allowed. Annually my father was approached by a group of good-old-boy Judges from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area with a lot of CASH offered, if they could come in, drink copious amounts of liquor, and shoot whatever they wanted. These requests were always denied by my father, and this fun group of Judges would just go down the road and find a willing rancher, such as Charly Seale, and open fire. These people need to be stopped in their tracks, but because of the rich good-old-boy circles in Texas, I fear that we will always be fighting an un-heard issue.
What’s next…Germans raising Jewish children for ‘conservation’ purposes so that a wealthy German can come in and spend $10 grand to shoot one of them in a corner? Wow, what fun it would be. Why doesn’t Mr. Seale bring in elephants for the same reason? Would that be tolerated by the good-old-boy Attorney General of Texas? Probably so.
Disgusting behavior from a lot of filthy rich rednecks. Let’s hope when they get to heaven (good luck on that one!) that God is not a Gazelle…..
On April 3, 2012, JSW wrote:
Better there are none than Hunted!