Zoopolitics

How caged animals became a tool of statecraft.

BY CHARLES HOMANS | MAY 26, 2010

Earlier this month, the government of Zimbabwe announced that it was planning to give North Korea an ark's worth of animals -- two of every creature found in the southern African country's Hwange National Park -- for its longstanding Asian ally's zoo. Conservationists in Africa and elsewhere, not unreasonably, fear the worst.

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As with most things in the Hermit Kingdom, only a few sketchy facts are known about the Korea Central Zoo in Pyongyang; its elephants purportedly are descended from a "hero" pachyderm given to the Kim regime by Ho Chi Minh -- even zoo attractions in North Korea come with an Western-imperialist-fighting lineage -- and one British visitor in the 1970s encountered a parrot that cawed "Long live the Great Leader!" in English. Suffice it to say that Pyongyang is probably no Mount Ararat.

But though President Robert Mugabe gifting a pair of baby elephants to Kim Jong Il may seem like a particularly ghastly move, zoos and geopolitics have long been closely linked -- with results that range from the bizarre to the downright appalling.

SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images

 

Charles Homans is associate editor at Foreign Policy.

ARJUNA

8:57 PM ET

June 6, 2010

This is interesting

Worth reading this post. Let’s face it. Not every parent can afford to take their child on a safari. In fact, most children who live in countries where safaris are taken cannot afford (and will never be able to afford) a safari. It is not uncommon to hear current political news stories of children who have never even seen a wild animal.

So, what then shall we say about the zoo? Should animals only be viewed in their natural habitat, by those who can afford to go and see them?…or…Is there something else that we parents can do to protect the welfare of the animals that we take our children to see?

 

ELI

8:15 PM ET

June 17, 2010

Zoopolitics

An interesting post also as commented 'Earlier this month, the government of Zimbabwe announced that it was planning to give North Korea an ark's worth of animals -- two of every world sport news today creature found in the southern African country's Hwange National Park -- for its longstanding Asian ally's zoo. Conservationists in Africa and elsewhere, not unreasonably, fear the worst." That's great idia.

 

SHERI007

2:11 AM ET

June 25, 2010

Pure business?

Vitalis Chadenga, the head of the wildlife department, called the deal “purely a business arrangement” for financially struggling Zimbabwe; he said it involved surplus species in the western Hwange National Park. But Johnny Rodrigues, the head of the independent Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, criticized the arrangement. oregon dental insurance plans “We understand North Korea does not have a good record in animal rights,” he said. “This is a pure business arrangement with no directive from government … North Korea is paying for the animals as well as meeting the capture and translocation costs,” he said. However, conservationists, led by Johnny Rodrigues, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF), slammed the plan. They fear that many of the animals will not survive the long journey, let alone conditions in the impoverished communist state’s zoos. dental insurance wy In a telephone interview, Chadenga said the animals had already been paid for. He said Zimbabwe had an over-population of elephants . “We have more than 100000 elephants in our national parks. We will sell them to anyone if they approach us .”