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From:	Jim (on-ice66.penguins.com)
Subject:	Wildlife Under Pressure Find 2nd Chance
Date:	November 27, 2006 at 7:43 am PST

Science
Monday, Nov. 27, 2006

ENTEBBE, Uganda (AP) - A baby chimpanzee found alone, helpless,
in the forest. An African rock python caged and taunted by
villagers until it cracks its skull on the metal bars. A rare
shoebill crane, a tall, gray-feathered beauty, discovered in the
trunk of a smuggler's car.
Dozens of animals like these are being rescued, nursed back to
health and given a home at the Uganda Wildlife Education Center, a
kind of halfway house for animals in trouble - wildlife under
pressure on a continent where human encroachment and poachers'
greed are pushing many species toward oblivion.
``We give them a second chance,'' says the center's executive
director, Andrew G. Seguya.
Some are released back into the wild, while those at greater
risk are given a home here for life.
By encouraging visitors to its site, which recreates Uganda's
grassland savanna, its wetlands and forests, the center hopes to
inform Ugandans about the need to conserve their wildlife resources
by showing them the variety and uniqueness of what they have to
protect.
There's the story of Sarah, for example, a 4-year-old chimp
being used for witchcraft when a trafficker's go-between bought her
for a few dollars. Probably bound for Europe or the Middle East,
Sarah raised such a ruckus as she was carried away in a bag that
police intervened. She's now been accepted by the center's
11-member chimp colony.
Each of the site's 35 shelters has such sad stories with happy
endings, as illustrated in these portraits by Associated Press
photographer Kirsty Wigglesworth.
``We want to change the way people perceive wildlife,'' Seguya
said.
On the Net:
Uganda Wildlife Education Center: http://www.uweczoo.org

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