• Drasglaf
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    5 months ago

    A young Carpathian lynx called Chapo, which is Spanish for Shorty, has won his freedom after repeated escape attempts and is now roaming the wilds of Saxony in search of rabbits, foxes and deer.

    The one-year-old wildcat, which was born in Nuremberg Zoo, had been intended for a breeding programme for the species which was hunted almost to extinction in Germany by the early 1900s.

    However, he had other plans and jumped over the fence of his enclosure shortly after his arrival at a breeding station in the Harz Mountains in early June.

    He was quickly caught but his wanderlust was evident. “He kept looking for ways out of the enclosure and found it difficult to settle down,” Saxony’s wildlife authority said in a statement.

  • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    It took me way too many takes to not read “fired” and I kept trying to figure out in what capacity he had been hired.

  • masquenox@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Okay… but was there a way for him to learn how to hunt before he was released?

    If not he could be in big trouble.

    • tyler@programming.dev
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      5 months ago

      The lynx was part of a program to make them not endangered anymore, so releasing was always part of the plan. This is the case with many zoos.

      • iiGxC@slrpnk.net
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        5 months ago

        Do you happen to have any stats on the percentage of animals in zoos where the goal is to release them into the wild, and maybe the percentage of ones too injured to ever be able to release?

        • Drusas@kbin.run
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          5 months ago

          It’s not their responsibility to educate you. Look that information up yourself if it’s something you’re interested in. You’re just being negative without any reason. Reintroduction programs are working around the world.

          • iiGxC@slrpnk.net
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            5 months ago

            I wasn’t demanding they educate me, I was curious if they had a source to back up their claim.

            The ones being negative are the zoos keeping animals captive for entertainment. The good of conservation and rehabilitation work doesn’t justify that

            Edit: I educated myself, turns out my hunch was right and the point I was trying to make stands. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7380022/ “The 40 species of animals bred for release by zoos represented only 14% of all animal species for which conservation translocations were published and only 25% of all animal species that were bred for releases occurring in North America”

            We don’t even need zoos to do the conservation work.

            Here’s a more general overview https://sentientmedia.org/pros-and-cons-of-zoos/

            You’re welcome for the education 😊

            • Drusas@kbin.run
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              5 months ago

              I wasn’t demanding they educate me, I was curious if they had a source to back up their claim.

              Yeah, we all know. You’re “just asking questions”.

              You’ve also made it clear that you don’t understand how modern zoos tend to work. They are often rehabilitation centers. And yes, we clearly do need them to do the conservation work because it’s not being done otherwise.

        • justsomeguy@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          By what? There’s no predator in that area that would hunt a lynx. It’d have to wander off very far to find one of the few wolf packs in the country.

          • MrMakabar@slrpnk.net
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            5 months ago

            Wolves do not hunt lynx. Nothing really does unless they are young or sick.

            However, they are very much released close to wolf territory:

          • Drusas@kbin.run
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            5 months ago

            I think the experts are a better judge of this than you are. And if you want to be that negative about a positive story, maybe go to a different community.

    • Drusas@kbin.run
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      5 months ago

      Did you even read the article? He was bred in captivity and was going to be used as part of a breeding program to enhance the numbers of this species which is endangered in Germany. Maybe don’t release them before breeding unless they are better suited to being immediately released to the wild like this young Chapo is.

      Breeding and release programs for endangered wildlife are good things.

    • Drusas@kbin.run
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      5 months ago

      This species is endangered in Germany. This is a good thing. And no, lynxes don’t generally primarily pray on birds. They can target larger game.

      FFS, read the article.

      • atro_city@fedia.io
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        5 months ago

        Primarily being the operational word here. It’s not the same as uniquely.