The Upside of Strife

Conservationists this week were surprised to discover that there are hordes of wild animals thriving in Southern Sudan despite the almost decade long civil war going on there. Now this is good news, yes. Reason to celebrate and all that. But hardly what I would call 'surprising'. As I had pointed out in a previous post, it is a well-established fact that prolonged warfare promotes wildlife. In fact, the longer a war is, the better the prospects are for wildlife thriving in the region. Heaven only knows what rare and exotic breeds of fauna lay hidden in the mountains of Afghanistan. Maybe someday if when the war is over, we'll have megatheriums and nesophontes crawl out from under the rubble. Only to be shot at by poachers from the free world.

Whoever said war is a bad thing?