منارة الرياح الموسميةManarat Alriyah Almawsimia (If it’s in the Monsoon, it’s got to be true)
PROTECTING ORYX HABITATI
nterior Ministry, August 10, 5218: The Interior Minister, Hakim al-Afdal, and the General Director of the Central Security Directorate and their aides held a meeting with personnel from the State Appropriations and Production Committee operating out of the Office of the President, from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to discuss the Majatran Oryx which is extinct in the wild.
The Majatran Oryx generally runs about a meter tall at the shoulder and weighs about 70 kilograms. The body has a bright white coat while its legs are dark. They have black markings on the face and long almost stright horns that are 50 to 75 centimeters long. They can live off the cacti, grasses and thorn bushes present in the Salimr Desert in Padeus and northern Abi‘nadi.
A Task Force from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture twenty year or so ago rounded up the roughly 1000 left and found locations where they could be kept in captivity leasing appropriate space in appropriate areas where they could be protected and hopefully and complete extinction could be prevented. And perhaps become viable again.
It was thought when the Task Force was formed Bedwi sheep herders had put too much pressure on the desert habitat of the Majatran Oryx for it to sustain viability. Prior studies and studies over the 20 years indicated predation by leopards never reduced the numbers by any sizeable amount. Investigation indicated that a Majatran Oryx might be killed from time to time by the Bedwi but that as a general rule the Bedwi treated the Oryx as an important part of the ecology whose viability must be maintained for occasional fur and food. Further studies indicated that coastal agricultural land use that is arable simply did not overlap Majatran Oryx habitat.
As it turned out, poachers were detected on a number of sites where the oryx were located. The poachers took pelts and occasional meat from their prey and burned or often buried the carcasses which substantially delayed detection. The main prize was in fact the horns which when ground were completely mistakenly believed by some wealthy elderly males in some unnamed barbaric nations to return their sexual capacity to that of their lost and hitherto unrecovered youth. They were willing to pay vast sums of money to sustain their delusions of adequacy at the cost of thereatening the existence of a gift of Akim to the people of our nation.
The Majatran Oryx now number oveer 7000. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism would like to start with returning 2000 to the wild to see how they fare but return of the remainder should be delayed until sustainability seemed likely. The Ministry would like to introduce them into the Wildlife Protedtion Area of the Salimr Desert which it operates which is a strip running in Eastern Padeus Muhafaza into Nother Abi’nabi Muhafaza to connect with the mountains bordering Solentia currently in use for the the benfit of the Majatran Leopard, the Majatran Jird and the Sand Gazelle all of whose futures are uncertain. But what of the poachers?
The General Director of the Central Security Directorate said protection of the Oryx should be the job of his directorate but that it would really be nice to get some drones for keeping an eye on things and some helicopter gunships to dominate the poachers as was done in a nation north of Jamahiriat al-Qalb some 350 years ago.
The head of the group from the State Appropriationas and Production Commttee indicated it would see if there were civilan drone manufacturers. The problem with helicopters was that those in use by the military were virtually all of foreign origin which we could not currently manufacture but they would see if replacements could be made and suggested the Committee report back to the group as soon as possible. And that as it tuns out is the plan.
Ministry of the Interior
OOC:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_oryx
