There are places in Africa where the clichés you sometimes hear about Africa are true; well, a bit true. I am talking about clichés like;
Africans win virtually every marathon race at world athletics competitions because back home they’re used to running away from lions.
An African would wake up in the morning and call his Bosco, but the dog would not respond. When he searches for Bosco, he discovers the remains of his dog as a leftover from last night’s Lions’ feasting at his backyard.
While it is true, the majority of Africans do not relate to such clichés and thus found them to be of poor taste. There are places in Africa where human and wildlife conflicts are the order of the day. The wild animals have learned how to avoid humans and the right time to launch their attacks on humans’ settlements while humans have learned how to subdue wild animals.
However, the human population is fast increasing and the demand for land for settlement, planting crops and grazing livestock has led to the encroachment of wildlife habitats. At the same time, humans’ domesticated animals like cows, goats and sheep make comparatively easy prey for Africa big wild cats like the Lions, Leopards, and Cheetahs among others. While the herbivores like Elephant, Buffalos and Hippo find our crops quite enticing.
As it is typical of humans, we like to eliminate threats whenever possible, and in this human-wild life conflicts; humans seem to be causing more causality to the animal sides than the other way round. The result is that Africa’s big cats’ population is decreasing at alarming rates. As humans living near wildlife, settlement kill them mostly as a means of self-defense and protecting their livestock and crops.
Well, they say there are many ways to getting rid of a rat; a lion in this case. A young Maasai boy stood before a crowd at TED and narrated how he came up with a contraption that tricks lions into thinking livestock are being guarded by men thus avoid attacking the area.
You see lions have learned than an encounter with humans is often a bad idea and would avoid human whenever possible. This young Maasai’s contraption fools lions into believing humans are around watching over their livestock at night while in reality the owners are deep in their sleep inside their homes. The livestock is actually outside in their sheds and completely unguarded. Without much further ado, check out the TED video below.
