animals

Farmer accidentally kills 2.5% of country’s condor population with poison

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A Bolivian farmer accidentally killed 35 condors with strychnine while trying to protect his livestock from a puma living in the area, according to Bolivian authorities after a slow and much-criticized investigation.

The large number of deaths was likely due to the behavior of the species at the time of feeding, with sometimes as many as 40 condors feeding on one carcass, according to Huascar Bustillos Cayoja, a researcher with the University of Bern in Switzerland and a professor of Ecology and Protected Areas at Udabol University in Bolivia.

By Milan Sime Martinić

For the First Time in Over 100 Years, Bison Freely Roam Banff National Park

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Parks Canada announced this week that wild bison have been released in a remote valley in Banff National Park in a project to re-establish a thriving herd in the area.

The released group numbers 16 bison in total, mostly pregnant 2-year-olds.

Parks Canada will monitor the herd with radio collars for the first 16 months, with the eventual goal of releasing the Bison group into a 1,200 square kilometer area where they will meet other native species and join a natural ecosystem.

Harvey Locke, a conservationist, writer and trustee with the Eleanor Luxton Historical Foundation in Banff, was quoted: “This is a great day for Banff National Park. It’s a great day for Canada and frankly, it’s one of the great days for wildlife conservation in the history of North America.”

Photos: Parks Canada and Johane Janelle/Parks Canada

322 Reindeer Killed by Lightning

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Reindeer
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“It is very unusual. I’ve heard of cattle having been killed by lightning, but not in such huge numbers,” said Knut Nylend, a warden at the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate (SNO) who came across hundreds of dead animals in a field between Møsvatn and Kalhovd Telemark, Hardangervidda.

The area covered with dead reindeer was around 50 – 80 meters in diameter, according to Nulend.

A hard thunderstorm had covered the area that afternoon, according to the warden the warden said, and the reindeer had been killed by lightening during the storm.

SNO and other authorities have gone to the site to take biological samples from the carcasses.

Hardangervidda has a population of reindeer of around 10,000, according to the Norwegian Wild Reindeer Centre.

VG (Norwegian language)