In the high Andes of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, you can still find the vicuña, a shy, elusive camelid, revered by Indigenous people. It has reasons to be cautious of humans. Long-prized for its fine wool, European colonists hunted it relentlessly. Flocks in the millions were reduced to 6,000 individuals by the 1960s. Indigenous-driven […]
Tag: hunting
“I was dragged into the murk. I clawed at the sand in hope of grabbing a rock to hit it with and pry my leg out from its jaws”
We were in the Jardines de la Reina archipelago off the south coast of Cuba, looking for the mysterious ‘Reina’ – a giant hammerhead that locals said had been spotted around the area. Interested to see if ‘Reina’ was indeed just one large female or in fact many different sharks, I decided to head into […]
Sharks have a deadly secret sixth – and possibly – seventh sense to locate prey — and it’s more terrifying than you think
Sharks have all the senses humans have – along with additional senses that enable them to detect electrical signals and vibrations in the water. Small pores on a shark’s snout, known as ‘ampullae of Lorenzini’, can detect the tiny electrical currents in the water given off by living animals and inanimate objects, such as camera […]
“He was grabbed by its powerful forelimbs. In the ensuing ‘embrace’ he suffered multiple puncture wounds from its razor-sharp foreclaws”
At first, being hugged to death by a giant anteater doesn’t sound like such a bad way to go. It’s up there with being caressed by kittens, nuzzled by lambs or tickled by baby goats. But there’s a catch. You may have seen videos of anteaters standing on their hind legs, arms outstretched as if inviting you […]
“That puzzled us quite a bit.” Scientists found another astonishing thing about narwhals after X-raying their tusks
An international team of researchers has solved the mystery of how narwhal tusks acquire their twisted structure. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Communications. Narwhals are often called the ‘unicorns of the seas’, and not without reason. Back in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the narwhal tusk was often sold as a unicorn horn. The mythical […]
Only a few hundred Timor green pigeons may remain. There is still time to save them
On April 20, on the south coast of Timor-Leste, Jafet Potenzo Lopes saw three green pigeons. He had not seen the species for years. The birds were Timor green pigeons, and the site, in Manatuto municipality, had no previous record of them. With the species nearing extinction, finding three birds in a new place was […]
Uzbekistan’s houbara releases serve hunting, not conservation, expert says
There’s no conservation motive or benefit behind the Uzbekistan government’s recent releases of more than 2,000 captive-bred Asian houbara bustards across its desert regions, according to an expert on the threatened species. The government has touted the releases over the past three months as a wildlife restoration effort, but Nigel Collar, a conservation biologist at […]
Its legs are as thick as wrists and it’s able to rip monkeys from branches with its deadly talons: Meet the world’s most powerful bird
Harpy eagles are iconic, almost prehistoric-looking birds of prey that regularly feature near the top of ‘birds-to-see-before-you-die’ lists. Seeing one of these majestic eagles in the wild is a truly special moment for birders. What are harpy eagles? The harpy eagle is one of the world’s biggest and most impressive birds of prey. How big are […]