https://bgr.com/2019/03/08/car...mozambique-bushbuck/



War-torn Mozambique is giving scientists a unique opportunity to study an ecosystem in peril

Mike Wehner @MikeWehner
March 8th, 2019 at 4:01 PM

Widespread carnivore extinction is a concern in many parts of the world. Many big game predators are prized by hunters and poachers alike, often leading to illegal hunts and dramatically reduced populations. Scientists and researchers leading conservation efforts know that pushing a dominate species to extinction will devastate the food chain, but they’d rather not actually see it in action.

However, in the Southeast African nation of Mozambique, researchers had little choice but to watch populations of leopards and pack-hunting dogs get completely wiped out due to ongoing human conflicts. The war-torn Gorongosa National Park became a shadow of its former self and, while this was indeed a tragedy, it gave researchers the chance to see what happens when carnivores are stripped from an ecosystem.



In a new paper published in Science, a team of ecologists from Princeton explain the sometimes surprising shifts that occur in animal and plant populations when there’s no carnivores to keep them in check.

What they discovered was that once the meat eaters were gone, prey animals became more confident in venturing to new areas. Herbivores like the antelope species known as bushbuck used to avoid huge areas of the park due to the risk of being hunted by the predators that claimed those lands for themselves.

Once the big cats and dogs were gone, the bushbuck began to spread into these once-forbidden lands, eating the plants that at one time benefited from the protection afforded by the carnivores.

The team performed experiments to test how reintroduction of predators to the area might change things. They used large speakers to simulate leopard vocalizations and distributed artificial droppings which the bushbuck then saw as a warning. The herbivores began to retreat back to the areas where they once hid away from the big cats, suggesting that reintroducing the predators and balancing things out might be easier than previously thought.

Another experiment, in which the plants being fed on by the bushbuck were protected by cages, revealed that the plants regrew rapidly when protected from the herbivore threat.

The park recently reintroduced African wild dogs, which were native to the park before being killed off, and things are slowly improving. The predators are hunting and pushing the bushbuck back to their previous ranges, which is good news for the park’s ecosystem.

quote:

The park recently reintroduced African wild dogs, which were native to the park before being killed off, and things are slowly improving. The predators are hunting and pushing the bushbuck back to their previous ranges, which is good news for the park’s ecosystem.

That will be the end of the territorial Bushbuck & Reedbuck population as well as the decimation of the Impala herds.

Wild dogs do NOT PUSH animals back to their previous ranges; they hunt them down mercilessly until there are none left.

There was time in TZ when Wild Dogs were on the 21 day quota; that was until the scientists emerged from behind the cushy comforts of their offices and declared them to be endangered species.

Hats off to scientific assistance!

The new religion is plants over plant eaters by these 'scientists' and 'environmentalists'. It's another false god.

I've also noticed the new mantra is to call painted wild dogs 'wolves' now. I believe this is another method of trying to garner empathy from the uninformed masses out there.

Greg Carr has done a good job turning Gorongosa around.

Have to give him credit for that.

...those damned pesky bushbucks. Look at all the damage they’re doing!


The world has turned truly insane. Common sense, which is not so common, has been eradicated from much of society.

Always love these scientists and their experiments. Put a cage around a plant eaten by herbivores-it regrows rapidly. Wow, what profound insights .

Interesting how they group hunters and poachers together.

They rest of their so called surprising discoveries are old news. They have all been documented in many other places before.

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Originally posted by Cougarz:
Interesting how they group hunters and poachers together.

For those who have not been watching...this is the norm today. In about every anti-hunting piece I have read for the last 10 years now...”sport” or “trophy” -hunters and poachers are lumped into the exact same group when writing about wildlife in Africa. This is in scientific and lay writing alike. The “anti-hunting movement” (for lack of better words) has effectively labeled us...pariahs. The people in the middle have bought it. To the world now...we are dinosaurs...but even worse...we are likened to a “Rudy” from Ice Age.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:

quote:

Originally posted by Cougarz:
Interesting how they group hunters and poachers together.

For those who have not been watching...this is the norm today. In about every anti-hunting piece I have read for the last 10 years now...”sport” or “trophy” -hunters and poachers are lumped into the exact same group when writing about wildlife in Africa. This is in scientific and lay writing alike. The “anti-hunting movement” (for lack of better words) has effectively labeled us...pariahs. The people in the middle have bought it. To the world now...we are dinosaurs...but even worse...we are likened to a “Rudy” from Ice Age.

All true but we as a group have never really put up any real defense. A very few have put up videos and written some good articles showing the importance of managed hunting but these are few and far between. They are also not seen by the people who really need to see them.

Most however do nothing or worse sit around complaining that all anti's are crazy and not worth the effort. In the mean time the majority of folks who will decide the future of hunting everywhere hear only the squeakiest wheel, that being what comes from the anti hunting community. As a group we need to do far more to get a rational message to folks who matter most.

Agreed 100%...lets get busy.