Three-month-old okapi baby Lulu, left, looks back under the protection of her 7-year-old mother Layla at 'Zoorasia' zoo in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2004. Lulu, now weighs 114 kilograms (251 pounds), was born Oct. 21, 2003 as the second baby to 330-kilogram (727-pound) Layla and an okapi father which were transfered to the zoo six years ago from the United States. It is quite rare for the endangered artiodactyls to bear more than one baby and Layla giving birth of her second babyLulu, that means a pearl in Swahili, is reportedly the first case in Asia. (AP Photo/Chiaki Tsukumo)
sometimes the programs to save animals work a little too well though...ex: canadian geese (i was surprised to learn) were once nearly extinct now they can be found many places in HUGE numbers and are sometimes even considered pests but sadly this is not always the case hopefully some day animals such as rhinos and okapis will be considered too plentiful but for now it is unclear what will become of them
Another example surprisingly has been bald eagles. Since DDT was banned the eagle populations on the whole have been rising steadily but now fishermen are complaining there are too many eagles snatching up all the fish. Luckily enough the government reaffirmed strong protection laws for the bald eagles. Wolves are the same way. Sheep ranchers in the lower Rockies and Mexico want to kill the wolves but they are endangered and the populations are improving and the farmers have their hands tied. Hopefully we can one day coexist with our nature friends in peace.
"Close your eyes,Let your spirit start to soar,And you'll live,As you never lived before" The Phantom of the Opera
"I'm not going out there without a bulletproof couch" -Sid Freedman; M*A*S*H*
Then there are sad stories that are about the opposite. Passenger pidgeons were so densely populated a century and a half ago, that a flock could literally blot out the sky! People thought they were so numerous that they couldn't possibly be killed off. But through unregulated hunting and the pidgeon's low reproductive rate, they were in fact exterminated from the face of the planet. They've been extinct for a while now....