Famous herd of nomadic elephants returns home 1:04
(CNN Spanish) -
More and more, jaguars eat dogs in Mexico.
Meanwhile, the capybaras "conquer" land in the province of Buenos Aires.
Thousands of miles away, a herd of elephants leaves their home in China and begins a long journey.
And in the Andes, spectacled bears come down the mountain to get food.
Why are they acting like this?
What happened this year to bears, jaguars, elephants, capybaras and many other species has an explanation: human beings.
Throughout the planet, in 2021 we witnessed how animals that we would usually only see in a nature reserve or a zoo advance over our human environments.
And it is not just about those moments at the beginning of the pandemic when we locked ourselves in and saw how they walked at ease through streets and rivers.
These are animals that are getting closer to us now that we are on the streets again, something that in some cases can be dangerous if we do not know how to manage it.
Why does this happen?
For the intervention of human beings in natural habitats, explain to CNN en Español María José Villanueva, director of WWF Mexico Conservation and leader of the Jaguar Initiative in Latin America, and Jeffrey Parrish, general director of Protection of the Oceans, the Lands and Water from The Nature Conservancy.
What do you see in this photo?
(Credit: Rhona Wise / AFP via Getty Images)
"A deer crossing a road."
That is probably your answer if they ask you what you see in this photo.
However, there is another possible answer: “a road through a forest”.
This example (which Villanueva took from a colleague) "serves a lot to illustrate what is happening with wildlife," he says.
"As the human being has been conquering borders, we have been losing these natural spaces and species need this dynamic of ecosystems to be able to develop their life cycle", he explains.
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What is happening with these species is not, as many say, that they are invading our spaces, but the opposite.
In Vilanueva's words, "the phenomenon that explains this interaction is that (humans) are invading these natural spaces."
Jeffrey Parrish uses another verb: intervening.
We are intervening in their habitats and these species need them to develop.
The numbers abound and speak for themselves.
Here's one that pretty much sums up the picture: Only 3% of ecosystems remain intact, according to a study published this year.
Jaguars that eat dogs
Villanueva gives the example of a colleague who bought a piece of land in Quintana Roo, Mexico, and there a jaguar ate her dog.
10 facts you should know about the jaguar, the king of America's cats (who is in danger)
Why?
Jaguars have fewer and fewer spaces to hunt.
Jaguars have fewer and fewer prey as they are hunted for human consumption.
And the dogs, slow and in abundance, are like a "delicacy" for the hungry jaguars.
The result is that they increasingly use them as food sources and to teach their young to hunt.
Behind this, what happens is that jaguars have lost about 50% of their original habitat "and" this has led to processes in which they moved large areas to look for a mate, to look for food, they can no longer do so. to do because they already have a road or have a tourist complex (in the middle), ”says Villanueva.
Jaguar and dog fought until they fell into the same well 0:55
Super smart elephants
Do you think that elephants that make long journeys are clueless?
That out there they do not know where they are going?
Quite the opposite.
"Elephants are super-intelligent and can pass information from one generation to another," explains Parrish.
This includes a memory about the movements that their ancestors have made, which makes the elephants continue to visit the same places as thousands of years ago, with the difference that these places are now intervened.
In the case of elephants in particular, the conflict with humans has grown in recent decades, as explained in this CNN note by Jessie Yeung and Kocha Olarn.
An elephant crashes into a woman's house in search of food as natural habitats shrink
These cases have attracted our attention especially.
And is not for less.
Imagine making breakfast coffee, looking out the window, and seeing capybaras where there used to be only ants.
Or have your dog face a jaguar.
Or an elephant crashing into your house.
However, Villanueva explains, the truth is that we are constantly in contact with the species: many times the animals are there and we simply do not see them.
These examples, then, serve as a reminder: they are there.
The climate change factor
To the intervention of habitats we must add another factor also caused by humans: climate change.
"Something else that complicates the situation is that with climate change, habitats are moving, very slowly, but habitats and different resources that animals need are moving," explains Jeffrey Parrish, so animals need to move to new places to obtain the necessary resources to survive.
(In this context, it should be remembered that scientists defined that global warming should be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and that, despite multiple warnings, we are moving towards an increase 2.7 degrees Celsius)
USA, the most CO2-generating country in history 0:53
Yes, there are solutions within our reach
Stopping the degradation of habitats is essential.
"The change in land use must stop," says Villanueva, "and we must not continue to expand our urban march," which can be achieved with better planning.
In addition to conserving habitats, Parrish explains the need to work in corridors that allow species to move wherever they see fit.
“We have to establish corridors so that they can move safely.
These corridors can be, for example, a path to connect two nuclei of habitats, like a highway that connects two cities ”, he explains.
Species need the same, especially in an increasingly hot and crowded country.
Villanueva points to this same solution with an example: if we have two protected areas where the tapir lives and an agricultural crop in the middle, we must work so that it has the adequate infrastructure so that the tapir can move from one area to the other.
Does this problem seem distant to you?
Whether you live on the fifth floor of a building in Miami or downtown Caracas, there is something you can also do, according to Villanueva: moderate consumption.
“This is not going to stop if we do not stop using at this level.
So we have to reduce consumption, produce better and conserve what we have left ”.
Ultimately, in Villanueva's words, it is about a change in the narrative that encourages a different way of acting: “We have to move from the 'human vs.
nature 'to' human within nature '(...) Transform conflict into coexistence ”.