By Tim Cocks

KAMPALA, May 28 (Reuters) - Ugandan soldiers have evicted hundreds of squatters from a national park because of fears their cattle might spread foot-and-mouth disease to endangered wildlife, the government said on Monday.

The cattlekeepers were chased out of Queen Elizabeth National Park, in the west of the country, over the weekend amid reports they were also poisoning lions to protect their herds.

"They were there illegally. The problem should have been solved earlier," Minister of State for Tourism Serapio Rukundo told Reuters. "The outbreak was why we had to act fast."

Foot-and-mouth disease does not usually affect humans and most animals that catch it recover.

But it can kill the young and seriously weaken adult animals, threatening wildlife already endangered by poaching and loss of habitat.

Rukundo said the number of tourists visiting the park, formerly one of the most popular in Uganda, had dropped sharply because the reserve was filling up with thousands of domestic cows.

"They do not come to see cows, they come to see wild animals," he said, adding that troops found evidence supporting long-held suspicions the squatters were also poisoning lions.

"In one house we found three lion skins. (The occupants) have been taken to the police and will be charged," he said.

Rukundo said local pastoralists had taken the opportunity to settle in the park when refugees fleeing Democratic Republic of Congo's 1998-2003 war trickled across the border into the area.

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is due to revisit the park -- named after her during a 1954 visit -- when she comes to Uganda for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in November.

AlertNet news is provided by