Word: preying
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cats, by nature, are territorial, live in low densities and hunt their prey over vast stretches of land (a tiger in the Russian Far East roams over 400 sq. mi., and a cheetah in Namibia will traverse 600 sq. mi.). A wildlife reserve has to be huge to support such animals, and even large parks can contain just so many of the fiercely territorial creatures. Big cats that roam or live outside reserves increasingly find themselves on turf staked out by farmers, herders and loggers, especially in parts of Africa and Asia where the human population is booming. Wild prey...
...tiger-friendly habitats and work out ways to bridge them. The Terai Arc program gives local people incentives to plant trees or tall thatch grass, which they can harvest and which tigers can use as cover. As forests and grasslands recover, deer, wild pigs and other tiger prey return. "Big cats can handle a modest amount of disturbance," observes WCS's Ginsberg, "but what they really need is cat food...
Scientists working in other places with other cats are devising similar plans to stitch together patches of wilderness with corridors to provide havens for big cats seeking prey or a mate. In the Americas, Rabinowitz of the WCS has proposed a 2,000-mile-long chain of public and private lands to link the disparate populations of jaguars. It would extend from Mexico through Central America to northern Argentina. Jaguars have lost half their habitat in the past century, and much that remains has been fragmented by logging and ranching. Experts have identified 51 conservation areas in 16 countries that...
Predation on livestock is the biggest reason for human--big cat conflict around the world. The solution is to make it harder for the cats to capture domesticated animals than wild prey. Cats are opportunistic hunters and will generally not go out of their way to kill a sheep if it is easier to jump a deer or an antelope...
...sheep and mountain goats--which are impossible to chase on steep, stony slopes. "Cheetahs have to wait for them to come down to the foothills in search of water holes," says Hunter. "It means they have a narrow hunting window, and that is depressing their population." To rehabilitate the prey, which are all protected species under Iranian law, the scientists are pushing the government to better enforce protection against the nomads' poaching and restrict the ownership of firearms in the region...