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Kenya starts massive animal relocation

  • Story Highlights
  • Kenya is moving 2,000 zebra, impala to a famed game reserve
  • Meru National Park was devastated by "rampant banditry and poaching"
  • Was setting for book and 1966 film "Born Free," about adoption of lioness cub
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NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) -- Kenya has started moving about 2,000 animals including hundreds of zebra and impala to a famed game reserve devastated by poaching, officials said on Friday.

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Grevy's zebras, an endangered species, run in Meru National Park, Kenya, which is resurrecting the park.

The monthlong exercise is part of a drive to rebrand Meru National Park, which is best known outside the country as the setting for George and Joy Adamson's book and Oscar-winning 1966 film "Born Free", about an orphaned lioness cub, Elsa, they raised.

"Such species as the endangered Grevy's zebra, common zebra, impala, Kongoni (hartebeest) and and Beisa oryx are targeted for what is considered the great African ungulate translocation," Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said in a statement.

The animals will be taken from better-stocked reserves in Kenya's Naivasha, Nakuru and Laikipia, KWS said, where they will be driven into funnel-shaped capture sites and loaded into crates.

"(Meru) lost its position as a premier destination for visitors seeking complete wilderness when it suffered a downturn in the 1970s and early 80s due to rampant banditry and poaching," said KWS spokesman Paul Udoto.

"But that's all part of history." E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

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