Critically Endangered
Around the World in 80 Days - Day 6
While Phileas Fogg sort of sailed past Libya, these are no longer there. Even when they were, it was not near the coast so there is no way he would have seen them. I am not showing only animals he may have seen on his journey, but ones that are from the general area. There are records that they were in southern Libya, but those records are things like a cave painting in the mountains at the Libya/Syria/Egypt border. The cave painting is lovely, and it shows what looks like a Dama gazelle on a leash. These are the largest gazelle, right around 40 inches at the shoulder. To give you an idea how big they are, the biggest white tailed deer gets up to 50 inches tall at the shoulder, but can be much shorter than the gazelle too. The Dama usually get all their water from their food. They are critically endangered because they have been over hunted and have had to compete with livestock. There are not many left in the wild. In the 1970's there were thought to be over 10,000 in a reserve in Chad. Now they think there are not even 100, and they are scattered between 4 different areas in Africa.
I'm having a bit of a hard time deciding what animals to do for some of the days. I think I have them almost all figured out through the 23rd day out of 80. I have given myself quite a challenge for sure. Oh, I'm so excited. I was going through past posts and I realized that a lot of them have had someone like them! I know some people have looked at my blog, I even have a new friend on Facebook because of this project which is amazing to me. I have a feeling she may have been one of the ones to like blog posts. It is nice, because I want information about the animals to reach as many people as possible, but I often feel as if my blog especially is mostly me talking to myself. Ok, so I do that anyway, and it drives my husband crazy sometimes, but still. Actually, my husband is really patient, because I think much of what I do drives him crazy. We are so very much opposites in pretty much everything. Back to the fact that some people have liked my blog posts, I am really excited about that. Everyone likes to feel that they are having at least a small impact, and it is very hard to believe you are if you don't think anyone is seeing what you do.