Animals in roads of...

Unusual opinions arrived to my hearing, as that of an official of the governor's office.  He believed that it was better to legalize the smuggling of animals.  He saw the traffickers put monkeys, birds, snakes and other species amid barrels, plants or whatever they would imagine.  As they had to take them out by flight, they didn't feed them in the airplane, fearing being discovered.  As consequence, their "shipments" arrived almost all dead because of stress, heat and oxygen lack.  For those that went better they took them out by earth, but just in the itinerary toward Bogotá they died for accumulation, fright or just sadness.

The posters of the INPA¹⁰ stay as decorations. They show the legal sizes for some 21 species, between maximum and minimum, but people fish what they can and most of them don't know how to read.  If the police get complicated, the fishermen give a turn and they enter the town from behind.  They travel it by foot, with wheelbarrows full with their copies; and they scream loud lung the name of the species that they take:  «Mojarra, mojarra!» «cachirre, cachirre!»  There always was who bought them, and if not, they got paid cheaper.

However, the fishermen didn't make as much damage as the mining or the pruning.  They were the first ones seeing the consequences and they got scared when seeing the shortages and the size decreases.  Some blamed the barbasco¹¹ of the natives, others to the army and the police that pushed them with the smuggling and looked blind with the Brazilians.

There was a rumor that "the boys" (the guerrilla) had prohibited the pruning and the fishing in the Guainian Guaviare.  Their sudden ecological conscience will leave many with unoccupied hands.  Some Inírida councilmen were happy with the possibility of see the town grew.

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NOTES

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10

National Institute of Fishing and Fish Cultivation.

11

Barbasco is a poison obtained from a liana given in the forest.  The indigenous communities used it in festivities, to fish for the big meetings.  They tossed the poison in a small brook and all the fish that it found in the road died.  The women and the children only had to pick up.  As the poison is biodegradable its consequences were not serious.  In the last years, laziness, irresponsibility and shortage has taken to use it in more brooks.  I listened about conflicts with the colonists for poisoned livestock and because, once used, the fish take a very long time for returning.