Wild Buffalo Threaten Crops in Cuba

Wild Buffalo Threaten Crops in Cuba

HAVANA – A herd of wild buffalo has become a nightmare for peasants in
the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio because the beasts are
invading and devouring their crops of tobacco and vegetables, Communist
Party daily Granma said Tuesday.

Dozens of farmers have decided "not to participate in the next tobacco
season if there are no guarantees for their plantations," while others
spend the night "frightened" of the animals, said the daily.

The buffalo drama began in 1987 when a group of 26 animals was released
in the grasslands in southern Pinar del Rio, about 175 kilometers (109
miles) west of Havana.

The animals reproduced and began ranging farther from their original
area in search of food and now authorities calculate that 10,000 to
12,000 of them graze in the zone into which they have spread.

"The scanty control, as well as the limiting of exploitation, has
created around the buffalo an image of aggressiveness and destruction,"
said Granma, adding that "the slowness of the response makes the cost of
the solution higher every day."

In the opinion of the director of the Technical Executive Group of the
Buffalo Program, Santiago Brito, "it will take four or five years" to
change the situation.

Ways to implement "a definitive control" of the beasts, such as sowing
specific pastures for them to graze in, would require "a lot of work ...
(and) a volume of resources that doesn't exist in the province," Granma
said.

"Today, only good intentions and bad precedents exist," the paper
reported, adding that some experts feel that the "future of livestock
farming" in Cuba could lie in the proper exploitation of the buffalo
because of the advantages they have over cattle.

In the last five years, the species increased in numbers by 18 percent
worldwide, while the number of cattle – the overall population of which
is substantially greater than that of buffalo – grew by only 1.5 percent.

Two decades ago, 2,900 buffalo were introduced into Cuba and since then
they have multiplied their numbers more than twentyfold, the daily said. EFE

Latin American Herald Tribune - Wild Buffalo Threaten Crops in Cuba (3
June 2009)

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=336381&CategoryId=14510