Word: sheeps
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This is no photo op in a wildlife park for tourists on safari. This is Mugie Ranch, a commercial livestock operation in Kenya's Laikipia district, about six hours north of Nairobi. Some 14,000 sheep and 1,000 cattle graze here on the open grasslands, tended by 200 ranch hands. Barely a mile from the feasting lions, herders are bringing cattle and sheep into their nighttime pens, raising clouds of red dust. The herders whistle at their dogs, which are on the alert for lions--and for leopards, which go to the nearby water hole at night to feed...
...their tendency toward mass slaughter. "When snow leopards get into a pen, their predatory instincts are repeatedly triggered, and they go on a killing frenzy," says Rodney Jackson of the Snow Leopard Conservancy. "Killing 20 or more animals at a time is not uncommon. One hundred and seven sheep is the record we've seen...
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...
...discovered that although some cheetahs are shot, the main reason for the animals' decline is that their favorite foods are disappearing from the landscape. Both the goitered and jeeber gazelles have been virtually wiped out by nomadic hunters. Cheetahs have been forced to survive on urial and ibex--mountain 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...
Tela O'Donnell, 22, a native of an Alaskan fishing town, is the opposite of the street-toughened Montgomery. Her toughest opponents as a kid were the sheep she wrestled near the log cabin she shared with her mother, a part-time mime. O'Donnell will compete in the 55-kg (121-lb.) division. "She's our free spirit," says U.S. coach Terry Steiner. She's also a wild card: O'Donnell upset the favored Tina George to make the team, and has little international experience...