Deep in the Amazon rainforest, there are mysterious canines with short ears, pointy noses, and bushy tails that roam the undergrowth. The creatures, which are one of the least studied variety of dogs on the planet, are rarely seen even by scientists who have spent years studying the region.
Officially, they’re called short-eared dogs, but they’re so elusive that they’re often referred to by the much cooler moniker of “ghost dogs.” As scientists have attempted to better understand these elusive creatures, one of the most significant findings about them has been about the size of their balls—seriously.
Veterinary physician Renata Leite Pitman, an affiliated scholar at Duke University’s Nicholas School of Environment, has devoted years of her life to studying ghost dogs. Twenty years ago, she was set to take a research job at Duke University, looking to launch a career in veterinary research in the U.S. But an advisor told Leite Pitman about his research project in the Peruvian Amazon. At the biological research station where he worked, his team had 10 encounters with the mysterious creatures in as many years.
“That’s a lot,” she told Earther. “There were almost no records of them at the time ... only two studies with records of encountering them. I thought, I need to ... get over to this place.”
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In late 2006, an opportunity arose to get super up close and personal with a ghost dog. By then, Leite Pitman had relocated to another research site in the Peruvian Amazon, and she heard about a man who had bought a ghost dog from a hunter who found it in the rainforest. The man had named him Oso, the Spanish word for bear. When she went to visit Oso at the man’s house, she found that he was being terrorized by other domestic dogs living there.
“They would eat all the [food] and leave him with nothing,” she said. “These animals aren’t supposed to be pets!”
After a year of trying to convince the man to let her reintegrate Oso into the wild, the man agreed to do so in exchange for a fee to cover the costs of Oso’s food. Leite Pitman was delighted—she’d see to it that the animal was re-acclimated to the forest, and along the way, would have an ideal research subject.
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Leite Pitman has continued to study the rare species. Scientists don’t have exact population estimates, but she thinks there’s fewer than 15,000 of them left. In addition to the challenges they face due to reaching sexual maturity at a relatively late age, the animals are also put at risk by hunters’ domestic dogs, which can spread deadly viruses the ghost dogs have no natural defenses against.
In the future, they’ll face even more danger. This year, Leite Pitman coauthored a study that found 30% of the area they inhabit is threatened by deforestation for farming, logging, and mining. Further ecosystem destruction and fragmentation could lead ghost dogs to extinction. Since they’re still not widely studied or understood, it’s hard to know what effect their extinction could have on other species in their ecosystems. But honestly, it’s probably best to not find out.
To protect these good boys, we need to protect the Amazon. That might give the ghost dogs a chance so they don’t become extinct, becoming actual ghosts that haunt the forest.
- More Here
Officially, they’re called short-eared dogs, but they’re so elusive that they’re often referred to by the much cooler moniker of “ghost dogs.” As scientists have attempted to better understand these elusive creatures, one of the most significant findings about them has been about the size of their balls—seriously.
Veterinary physician Renata Leite Pitman, an affiliated scholar at Duke University’s Nicholas School of Environment, has devoted years of her life to studying ghost dogs. Twenty years ago, she was set to take a research job at Duke University, looking to launch a career in veterinary research in the U.S. But an advisor told Leite Pitman about his research project in the Peruvian Amazon. At the biological research station where he worked, his team had 10 encounters with the mysterious creatures in as many years.
“That’s a lot,” she told Earther. “There were almost no records of them at the time ... only two studies with records of encountering them. I thought, I need to ... get over to this place.”
[---]
In late 2006, an opportunity arose to get super up close and personal with a ghost dog. By then, Leite Pitman had relocated to another research site in the Peruvian Amazon, and she heard about a man who had bought a ghost dog from a hunter who found it in the rainforest. The man had named him Oso, the Spanish word for bear. When she went to visit Oso at the man’s house, she found that he was being terrorized by other domestic dogs living there.
“They would eat all the [food] and leave him with nothing,” she said. “These animals aren’t supposed to be pets!”
After a year of trying to convince the man to let her reintegrate Oso into the wild, the man agreed to do so in exchange for a fee to cover the costs of Oso’s food. Leite Pitman was delighted—she’d see to it that the animal was re-acclimated to the forest, and along the way, would have an ideal research subject.
[---]
Leite Pitman has continued to study the rare species. Scientists don’t have exact population estimates, but she thinks there’s fewer than 15,000 of them left. In addition to the challenges they face due to reaching sexual maturity at a relatively late age, the animals are also put at risk by hunters’ domestic dogs, which can spread deadly viruses the ghost dogs have no natural defenses against.
In the future, they’ll face even more danger. This year, Leite Pitman coauthored a study that found 30% of the area they inhabit is threatened by deforestation for farming, logging, and mining. Further ecosystem destruction and fragmentation could lead ghost dogs to extinction. Since they’re still not widely studied or understood, it’s hard to know what effect their extinction could have on other species in their ecosystems. But honestly, it’s probably best to not find out.
To protect these good boys, we need to protect the Amazon. That might give the ghost dogs a chance so they don’t become extinct, becoming actual ghosts that haunt the forest.
- More Here
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