Of Dead Lions And Swarming Migrants - Why We Need To Get A Handle On Overpopulation NOW!

A Lion's head ready to be packed and dispatched by air to a trophy hunter's 'cave' in the USA

African migrants congregate near Calais to try to make a break through the "Chunnel" to get to Great Britain

The identification of 71 bodies of Syrian and Afghan migrants, stuffed into a Hungarian meat truck with Slovakian licenses just inside the Austrian border,  has raised awareness of the peril of human smuggling, and also the dastardly nature of it  - much of the sordid business conducted by unscrupulous rogues. It also has brought to attention the tidal wave of migrants and refugees flooding into Europe in search of a better life.

It is also doubtful that many people will make the connection between lion trophy heads dispatched to trophy hunters' homes in the U.S. and African migrants pouring into Europe - but there is a connection, and it's overpopulation. Overpopulation in the African continent - which for years has gone unaddressed - especially in making contraception widely available.  Now the 'chickens' have come home to roost, first with humans' expanding numbers encroaching on lion territory and second, national populations now so dense - and with vanishing opportunities - that it drives people to find refuge abroad, mainly in Europe.


In the WSJ piece, 'Humans, Lions Struggle to Co-Exist', Aug. 8-9, p. A7, it was noted:

"Africa's human population is the fastest growing in the world. In roughly the same period as the lion decline (42 percent over 21 years), the number of Africans has doubled to nearly 1.2 billion people. The population will double again to 2.5 billion by 2050 according to the United Nations."

In fact, short of a global catastrophe, it is projected to reach 5.8 billion by 2100. That means nearly 1 of every 2 people on Earth will be African. Where will the resources be to support them? The jobs? The water? The life quality? Fact is, that population growth is unsustainable and means either vast numbers will perish, likely of disease, war or famine - or they will do everything they can to go to places with greater opportunity and resources- like Europe and the U.S.

Already, as the second image shows, European locations are being swarmed by desperate Africans, from Eritrea, Uganda, Somalia, Nigeria and other countries - as well as by Syrians seeking to escape their civil war.

The WSJ piece further emphasizes that while the African population boom "has centered on increasingly crowded cities and migrants risking their lives for better opportunities on other continents" it is also "stressing rural populations".

The consequences are serious and portend that disaster lies ahead unless something is done to slow the population. Because in truth, Africa cannot solve its growth simply by dispatching its surplus population overseas, and  besides those overseas native populations are already chafing at their own austerity-limited resources being consumed by outsiders.

In Africa's case, as the article goes on, more people "has meant more forests being turned into pastures, more locals hunting lions' prey for their own meals - leading to starving lions- and more herders killing lions rather than risking cattle." It also means more stressed African nations, i.e. see those identified below,

allowing trophy hunters to come in and claim their "prizes" for money - ostensibly to support conservation, but more accurately to support assorted African power regimes and bureaucratic kingpins.

How bad is it? As the WSJ article notes, Central and West Africa have already suffered the loss of 66 percent of their lion population. In W. Africa, lions  - because of burgeoning human numbers - are now confined to less than 1 percent of the 4.5 million square miles of sparsely forested land where they used to roam.

In Mozambique alone, human number inside the giant Niassa Reserve have grown from 21,000 in 2001 to 35, 000 in 2012 leading to increasing clashes with the park's lions, and many deaths  - often from hunts, or being caught in snares.

Clearly, Africa's uncontrolled population growth is driving the mass slaughter of lions. It doesn't take a math genius or ecologist to see that.

Then there is the migrant issue, which now has the attention of most European Union nations. How bad is it? According to another WSJ piece by Simon Nixon ('Crisis At EU's Borders Becoming Next Big Threat to Cohesion', Aug. 17, p. A5), Germany alone reckons that 800,000 migrants have arrived this year. These numbers are also testing the level of German hospitality - already stretched by the nearly 1 million Turks in the country, and which we saw nasty evidence of anti-immigrant, pro-Nazi blowback when we visited Munich in May, 2013. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/what-are-new-german-nazis-really-up-to.html

The EU border agency Frontex, Simon Nixon notes, "estimates that more than 100,000 mirgants crossed into the EU in July alone, compared with 270,000 for the whole of last year."

Again, these migrations can't go on, and the Europeans won't accept millions piling onto their shores in the coming years,  when the originating nations can't or won't control their own numbers. In the meantime the EU is desperately trying to establish a quota law for all members of the EU such that each member nation takes in its fair share. However, the eastern European nations are thus far having none of it - demanding their own limits. For example, Slovakia right now insists on only 200 migrants, maximum, and all must be Christians- no Muslims. This position is a non-starter for Angela Merkel and the Germans, but the eastern EU members insist they lack the resources of Germany and the UK to support thousands.

In Greece alone, those entering from (mainly) Syria enter a no man's land with precious few supporting resources - even food and water. The existing tent cities housing thousands are almost exclusively dependent on volunteers top assist. Greek austerity is a major component in the lack of assistance, and the migrants currently stuck there only hope they can move on to northern Europe soon.

Meanwhile, if the African continent sports 2.5 billion by 2050 will the Europeans really let 1 billion flood their shores from the Sahel region and equatorial Africa, swarming in rickety boats across the Mediterranean ? If you believe so, you are dreaming.

According to EU law NOW, when the flood is around 100,000 a month max, those migrants claiming refugee status (as most do - according to Nixon, ibid.) are "entitled to be fed and housed while their cases are being investigated".

That is sure to change if the incoming numbers get much higher, again - not out of any innate nastiness - but because in a world of limited resources charity only goes so far. As Nixon points out:

"For a country such as Greece, in the midst of a financial crisis, the drain on resources has been too much, leading to angry scenes at reception centers."


Things will not go much better in other EU nations if they face austerity- and the slowing of the world's economic growth portends this given the ongoing degradation of energy sources.

The solution is clear, and the U.S. and EU know it too. They must collaborate to make artificial contraception widely available and make sure Africans know how to use it. This is not, as some knot heads argue - a device to "control black numbers"  - but rather to control the numbers of humans in the most overpopulated and fastest growing region on the planet. Who will not find salvation outside their places of origin, if they fail to take control of their own numbers.