WEALTHY Arabs, who angered environmentalists in India for hunting the rare Great Indian Bustard, have touched Tanzanian wildlife experts in the raw for allegedly using automatic weapons to mow down buffalo and antelope.

What has enraged Tanzanian wildlife lovers even more is that UAE deputy defence minister Mohammed Abdul Rahim al-Ali was given an exclusive shooting-rights lease for 10 years in a 4,000 sq km area, bordering on the world famous Serengeti National Park. Said one Tanzanian hunting expert, "In the history of this country, we have never seen anything like it before -- 70 hunters toting semi-automatic weapons." But the Tanzanian government pleads, "General al-Ali and his party have in two years of their hunting expeditions, given $500,000 to the Tanzanian department of wildlife."