SimonB

Hi guys

This is an urgent appeal to bloggers across South Africa to stand together and take action.

On the 1st of April 2009 - 16 beautiful South African lions will be “euthanized”.

Sadly This is NOT an April fool joke.

The reason for this seemingly cold hearted behavior is because the lovely people taking care of these lions over at SanWild have run out of funding and can no longer care for their needs. Permits could also not be issued to translocate the lions to other sanctuaries and as we all know a hungry lion is a dangerous lion so there is no other option, or is there?

To feed these lions for 1 month costs in excess of R64000.00

If we can get 640 people to each give R100, we can buy these lions 1 month extra. A month may not sound long, but when lives are on the line every second counts.

On the 28th of March we stood together for Earth hour, now is the time to stand together to save these lions. Ok so this is where you personally enter the picture. I am putting an open challenge to all bloggers across South Africa to please set aside 5min of your time on Monday 30 March 2009 to blog, tweet, facebook and whatever else it is we do to this story.

This is how the challenge works - I am putting up the first blog post and donating the first R100.00

All you need to do is blog about this challenge, get your friends, co-workers and readers to start matching my donation. If you are also financially able to contribute R100.00 please do so, but even if you can’t make a donation, every extra blog post, twitter message and facebook wall post can help. All pledges made should be added to the comment section of this post so we can keep track of how much is raised. Please also link back to this post from your blog, twitter and facebook.

We have exactly 48h to raise the funds, lets not delay!

Donations should be paid directly into the SanWild account:

SanWild Banking Details: ABSA, Danie Joubert Street, Tzaneen, SOUTH AFRICA. The account number is 9111221180, Branch Code 334349, Swift Code ABSAZAJJ, Iban Code ZA632005.

Please user “Blog challenge” as your payment reference.

I thank you for taking the time to read this post and save these 16 lions.

Yesterday saw the launch of yet another great star in the local zoopysphere. In just 1 day “Rex” took home more than 500 page views, not bad for a talking lion.

Most of you have probably already seen Rex the freaky lion, his creation comes shortly after the announcement that Zoopy and Vodacom have partnered. So the question arises is Rex a Zoopy/Vodacom PR stunt or is he just another creature clawing his way to the top?

Anyway no matter who is behind Rex, I must say it’s a great idea and is sure to keep the blogoshere on their toes for the next few days, weeks or however long it stays interesting.

Rex seems to be on the prowl and the question is, is he dangerous? Well Rex, are you?

I must say some of your comments sound really freaky dude especially to our female friends, just remember, we are watching you too

So anyway it looks like Rex prowls mainly on people in the local blogosphere and he has already pounced on some of the best including Catherine Lückhoff, Rich, Mike Stopforth, Nic Haralambous, Matthew Buckland, Charl VN, Glen Verran and Simone Biz. The question is who will he pounce on next?

Rex is a great new addition to the sphere and I hope to see much more of you in the future. Welcome Rex!!