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.A tiger with more practice might have been able to catch that turkey.Infact I can t help feeling, in species vainglory, that you or I might have caughtone of those turkeys.But other hunts in the tiger enclosure have been more suc-cessful.One year a mallard duck elected to build her nest by the moat in frontof the tiger exhibit and hatched a dozen ducklings.Some visitors who saw the 142 BECOMING A TIGER-brood dwindling day by day were upset by this evidence that the tigers had notlost their predatory nature, and complained bitterly to zookeepers.I myselfhave criticisms for the duck.-IT S ALL VERY WELL to learn who you are and what to say aboutit, but it s even more vital for baby animals to learn how to make a liv-ing when they grow up.Some professions, such as eating grass, don tseem to require as much learning as other professions, such as sneakingup on, killing, and eating grass-eaters.On the other hand, to succeedat the job of eating grass, you must also be able to avoid those whowould end your career by eating you.These mean streetsWhen going forth to seek their fortune, one of the first things younganimals must do is learn their neighborhood.Some will stay wherethey were born, and others will eventually go forth and look for newplaces, but even the ones who seek new territories need to learn whatgood places to live are like, and how to get around in them, the wildequivalent of how to cross the street.Jungles are scary places for jungle animals that have never beenthere before.Arjan Singh raised a leopard, Prince, who was simplyappalled when Singh first took him walking in the forest.There couldbe monsters anywhere! Only because he was with Singh and the nobledog Eelie did he dare go into the woodlands.Then the monsoonarrived.Here he d thought he knew the worst they could throw at himand now there was water everywhere all the time.Prince was just a yearold and now accustomed to making unescorted forays into the forestand even killing some of his own food, but he still returned regularlyto Singh until the monsoon, when he vanished. I grew more andmore fearful that he had died, writes Singh.When he had been goneeight days, someone heard a faint sound across the river and saw amiserable little leopard perched in the fork of a tree.When Eelie and Iwent to rescue him in the boat, he cried with relief, giving pitiful aoms.From his ravening hunger, it was clear that he had not eaten for thewhole week. How to Make a Living 143-As a result of the reasonable caution a creature may feel in astrange environment, animal rehabilitators who set captive-reared ani-mals free must often wait a long time before the animals feel boldenough to leave their cages or pens.In a release of captive-rearedorangutans into an Indonesian rain forest one ape came out, lookedaround, went back into the transport cage, and closed the door.Clare Kipps, who raised a crippled baby sparrow in her Londonapartment, eventually bought a small potted tree for him to perch in.He was terrified at the sight and dived down the collar of her shirt tohide from the tree.He wouldn t go near the ghastly thing, and shereluctantly bought a cage, which he adored.Przewalski s horses (the only surviving wild species of horse) havebeen raised in captivity and released to their ancestral range.They veadapted well and a second generation has been born.The principalproblem rehabilitators encountered was the horses reluctance to leavethe release area.They all wanted to stick around and fought each otherfor the privilege.The released Przewalski s horses were showing site tenacity. Butin addition to learning that a particular neighborhood is home, younganimals can learn that a particular kind of neighborhood is home.European mistle thrushes used to nest in the middle of pine forests.When many European forests were cut down, grown mistle thrushesreturning to their hometowns to raise families often found themselvesnot in a pine forest, but in open parkland.Exhibiting site tenacity,some of the thrushes raised families there anyway.Luckily, the speciesthrived there.The next generation, exhibiting locality imprinting, hadlearned that open parkland was a fine sort of place to nest, and theyincreased and spread.In the same way, curlews in Scandinavia returned to the bogswhere they had always nested, only to find that the bogs had beendrained and converted to fields.Insisting that no one was going to kickthem out of their ancestral bog, they nested anyway and their chicksgrew up to consider agricultural land their traditional nesting place.Anemonefish are a group of fish species, and each species lives insidethe sheltering tentacles of a different species of sea anemone.They laytheir eggs on a nearby rock, and when the young fish hatch, they hangaround the rock a little and then spend a few weeks swimming aroundbefore they settle in an anemone.But right after hatching, they learn the 144 BECOMING A TIGER-smell of the anemone their parents live in, the one near the rock on whichthey were born.When it s time to settle down, they seek an anemone ofthe species that smells right.If, due to the machinations of researchers, ananemonefish is born in an aquarium where there is no anemone to smell,it is not quite sure what to do when it wants to settle down and the onlyplace available is an anemone.It can take one of these fish two days tomove in to the perfect anemone, whereas a fish with the right upbringingtakes only five minutes.Learning the neighborhood may not be enough.Young animalsmay need to learn exactly where in the neighborhood they are safewhich street corner is the best to hang out on.In many cases whencaptive-reared animals are released in the wild, they lack the criticalinformation that they should stay off the ground.Endangered Hispaniolan parrots born and raised in captivity andreleased into the wild spent a lot of time foraging on the ground or in lowbushes, a mistake a wild-born parrot would not make, and one whichexposes the birds to great danger of predation.Indeed, researchers, tryingto figure out why some released parrots they had fitted out with radiotransmitters had vanished, followed the signals out of the forest and tothe home of a Haitian family who had caught the birds and eaten them.In the early days of a golden lion tamarin reintroduction project inBrazil, tamarins raised in captivity and released in the forest wereobtuse about unexpected things.They were slow to leave the outdoorenclosure in which they had been allowed to adjust to the local cli-mate, and when they did leave, they perched on top of the pen.It wasnot obvious to them, as it was to the scientists who were watchingaghast, that for hawks and eagles this was the equivalent of a neon signreading EATS.The scientists dismantled the pen, forcing the tamarinsto move into the trees.Here it turned out that the tamarins did notgrasp the principles of moving through the forest.Despite the incredi-ble athleticism they had shown in captivity, natural vegetation struckthem as untrustworthy and they became hesitant and unimaginative.They disliked the way things moved under their weight. The animalswere unable to plot a cognitive route through the forest between them-selves and an incentive.Their movements were characterized by falsestarts, fruitless retracing of pathways to dead ends, and, finally, descentto and travel across the ground, the researchers noted
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Tematy
IndexStephens Susan Harlequin Œwiatowe Życie Ekstra 205 Na francuskim zamku
Howatch Susan Za lœnišcš zasłonš 02 Cudowne moce
Howatch Susan Za lœnišcš zasłonš 03 Najwyższe trofea (2)
Tom 03 Kandydat na ojca Phillips Susan Elizabeth
Mallery Susan Siostrzyczki 01 Słodkie słówka
Phillips Susan Elisabeth WÅ‚oskie wakacje(1)
Phillips Susan Elisabeth Pierwsza Dama
Susan Mac Nicol Saving Alexander
Leon Donna Komisarz Brunetti Zgubne śÂ›rodki
Kodeks Karny Wykonawczy