“Where are all the animals?”
My wife Leili asked this of the park ranger at the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area in Tanzania in 2019, on our first trip back to Africa in almost 50 years. Leili was born in Tanzania, and I in Kenya, both to immigrant parents of Indian descent. From our childhoods in both African countries, we remembered herds of rhino, vast numbers of elephant, African buffalo, hippo, zebra, gazelle, lion, and many more.
“There used to be thousands more animals here!” Leili pressed the ranger that day in 2019. “I visited Ngorongoro Crater with my school group in 1970. There were so many more animals, of all kinds! Where are they?”
“Poachers,” the ranger answered grimly. “Even though armed rangers protect this site, poachers have killed off just about every rhino as well as lots of elephants and other animals.”