A new study finds that a colorful way to keep cattle safe from predators and predators safe from people might actually work. Farmers in northern Botswana let their cows roam and graze during the day, but that was leaving livestock at the mercy of attacks by lions, leopards and other carnivores. When a farmer loses a cow, the village will often hunt down the big cat and kill it. It's one of the reasons that lion populations have plunged in the past few decades in Africa. Enter a pair of conservation biologists from Australia. Cameron Radford and Neil Jordan wanted to see if there was a way to help cattle and carnivores coexist, so they came up with the idea of tricking the wildcats into thinking they’ve been seen by their prey and so abandon the hunt. They painted eyes on the backsides of half of the herd and left the other half untouched. After four years, they discovered that none of the cows with the artificial eyes on their rumps were killed by ambush predators. The study showed that painting eyes on cattle is a very low-cost technique that basically saves the life of cattle, while also saving the lives of lions and leopards. It turns out to be a win-win for everybody involved.
