“Wild life, whatever happened to…
Wild life, the animals in the zoo?” – “Wild Life”, Paul McCartney and Wings

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Awright, so neither the album nor the song are very good, but it’s an “all wildlife, all the time” day here at Goodboys Nation! Earlier, we did the big blue, now its on to terra firma…

* First off, some good news – Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro continues his long recovery from his near-fatal injury at the Preakness. There’s actually a University of PA Veterinary Medicine Center blog devoted to updates on his condition. It’s great to see that the horsey is obviously loved and being incredibly well taken care of, and the blog is a nice touch.

* This story about stupid animal rights activists in Switzerland really bugs me (my bolding):

Animal rights activists who broke into a circus to liberate a rare white tiger changed their minds after seeing it – and took a bunny rabbit instead.

Campaigners from the Swiss faction of the Animal Liberation Front had earlier told Circus Royal director Oliver Skreinig they planned to steal the Siberian tiger and hand him to a zoo.

But when they broke into the circus enclosure and saw the animal they changed their minds – and stole a rabbit instead.

The liberationists then posted pictures of themselves online wearing black army uniforms and balaclavas and holding the rabbit.

Skreinig said: “The pet rabbit was not even in the show, it belonged to our clown’s six-year-old daughter.”

Pretty pathetic, huh? Here’s my question – after getting the tiger, where’d they think they were gonna put it – in the back seat of their Chevrolet? A dining-room sized pet carrier? For both the clown’s daughter and her bunny rabbit’s sake, I sure hope these creeps have the guts and compassion to return it to her. While many animal activists have their hearts in the right place, these jokers were not just stupid, but cruel and mean as well. And The Great White Shank hates cruel and mean. (Hat tip: Polipundit)

* Those eclectic folks at Free Republic provided this National Geographic story link about things not looking very promising for the hippo population in a Congo wildlife reserve. I find this particularly heart-breaking:

Hippopotamuses are being butchered by the hundreds inside a Central African wildlife reserve, conservation groups report.

An aerial census conducted yesterday put the hippo population in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at 629

This represents a 98 percent crash in numbers since the 1970s, when there were some 30,000 animals, according to the Frankfurt Zoological Society based in Germany, which carried out the census.

In recent weeks about 400 hippos have been slain, according to Emmanuel de Merode, head of the Africa Conservation Fund based in Kenya.

The killing is being blamed on Congolese militia currently operating inside the park. The rebels are believed to be eating and selling hippo meat and taking the animals’ teeth for ivory.

Not is not only tragic, but a disgrace as well; just don’t expect the government to step in and do anything about it. Between the increasing expansion of radical Islam, the ongoing AIDS epidemic, the Darfur tragedy, and the usual cabal of incompetent and corrupt dictators sucking from the trough of their poverty-ridden populations, Africa is in a greater mess than ever before, with no real hope in sight. Perhaps the Colonial Powers of the 19th and early 20th century were not always acting in the best interests of their possessions, but they did bring a sense of order to things, and you didn’t have the rampant chaos and corruption there is now. Of course, that’s not a very politically-correct thing to say, but the fact is, Africa is not, and will never be, able to take care of itself politically and economically. And its never the people in power who suffer.