A conservation biologist has number up with a fresh method for protecting Bos taurus from being hunted by African lions : paint eyes on their butts . The lions will recall their intended prey has watch them and will move on , since they ’ve lost the component of surprisal .
This bit of psychological chicanery has been knight “ iCow ” by the man who came up with the musical theme — Neil Jordan of the University of New South Wales in Australia . It ’s actually not as nutty as it sounds . The centre - alike design on butterfly stroke wing are known toward off preying birdsand , according to Jordan , woodcutters in Indian forest actually wear masks on the backs of their heads when mould to discourage hungry tigers .
The stirring for the iCow strategy came while Jordan was found in a village in Botswana , when two lioness were killed by local farmers in retaliation for preying on their oxen herds . The African Leo is a vulnerable species , with numbers dropping from over 100,000 in the nineties to between 23,000 and 39,000 today , according to the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust ( BPCT ) . Much of that decline is due to these kinds of retaliation killings because Fannie Merritt Farmer have no non - lethal strategies for protecting their herds .
“ Lions are ambush hunters , so they creep up on their prey , get airless , and startle on them unobserved , ” hesaid in a statement . When Jordan was watching a lion stalk an Aepyceros melampus one day , he noticed the Leo gave up the hunt once the Aepyceros melampus pick out it .
So he joined military group with the BPCT and one of the local husbandman on a 10 - week visitation report , stamping eye on one - third of a ruck of 62 cattle . When the cattle return each dark , they took a heading reckoning to see how many had exist . Only three cows were stamp out by lions during this period — all without the painted eyes on their rumps . And all the painted cows survived .
It was such a promising early result that Jordan is now back in Botswana for a more challenging field of study , augment with GPS devices to better monitor the movement of predators and prey . “ This will give us selective information about the exposure of painted and unpainted cows to depredation risks , and where the dispute hot spots are , ” he said .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syi0UkBt-jU
[ Oddity Central ]
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