|
|
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANASTASIA TAYLOR-LIND
|
|
Hunting: There has been an increase in killings of birds of prey during the pandemic on upper-crust British hunting estates. Conservationists are investigating whether gameskeepers have sought to cut down falcons and other predators of grouse, the target of the well-heeled human hunters, Nat Geo reports. (Above, a satellite device being attached to a hen harrier, endangered in the U.K. The device allows experts to track the bird’s movements and document when and where they die.)
Where did this ‘wolf’ come from? Since the days of Charles Darwin, scientists have puzzled over how a fox-like creature became the only mammal on a set of desolate South Atlantic islands. Did they ride an ice floe before Europeans settled? A new study uses excavated charcoal, bones, and tools to suggest Indigenous seafarers inhabited the Falklands Islands (also known as the Islas Malvinas) many centuries earlier. Those intermittent residents also may have brought their canine companions along, Nat Geo reports.
Ringling Bros. plans comeback—without animals: Feld Entertainment wants to bring back the “Greatest Show on Earth” in 2023, but there will be no circus animals. The circus was retired in 2017 due to declining ticket sales, high operating costs, changing tastes, and costly fights with animal rights groups, the Bradenton Herald reports.
Animals over people? London has more public sculptures of animals than the city does of women or people of color, according to CNN. Eight percent of public sculptures depict animals, while just 4 percent depict women and one percent depict people of color. Men account for more than 20 percent of the city’s 1,500 monuments.
To feed or not to feed? A coastal Philippine town is changing the diet and migratory patterns of the world’s biggest fish—in the name of tourism. Townspeople are hand-feeding whale sharks, some as much as 60 feet long, at regular intervals. The shrimp feast is an effort to keep the gentle behemoths, whose population is declining, around all year to spark a tourism revival after the pandemic. But the feedings keep the whale sharks closer to the surface, resulting in more scarring and abrasions on their bodies from boats and other floating hazards, photographer and Nat Geo Explorer Hannah Reyes Morales reports for the New York Times.
|
|
|
|
