A group of professionals state that they’ve finally captured the elusive bush dog, which are known to be one of the sneakiest and hardest to find dogs on the planet.
They generally roam around Central and South America, not so much North America. They’re highly threatened, which only adds to the rarity of the breed.
Of course, being this elusive, no one was actually there to photograph the miracle. High speed camera traps were placed in the area, which run on infrared sensors and all this crazy technology to snap a quick pic. They were placed all around Panama by a researched named Ricardo Moreno.
Bush dogs are short, stubby and only about 30cm tall. They hunt in packs of up to 10 and communicate to each other using whines. They’re omnivores and mostly eat big rodents.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature states that bush dog populations have dropped by up to 25 percent, marking it as a near-threatened species. This is mainly due to habitat loss. Bush dogs roam up to 700 square kilometers, so rainforest space is critical.
At least, the cameras did prove something. Instead of being “threatened,” they’re slightly more common than the group had previously thought, only a lot more elusive.
They’re now marked as “near-threatened.” While this isn’t necessarily a good thing, they discovered that since they’re so elusive, it caused the group to believe they were “threatened.” That’s how rare they actually are. Seriously.
Moreno states:
“Our group of biologists from Yaguará Panama and collaborators are working on an article about big mammals using camera trapping data that spans Panama from the Costa Rican border to the Colombian border. “The bush dog is one of the rarest species that we photograph.”
It’s important that we buy paper form sustainable forests, as this is a direct example. Keep recycling and save the bushies.
