A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Colorado State University, and the National Park Service indicates previously unknown high altitude contests between two of America’s most sensational mammals – mountain goats and bighorn sheep – over access to minerals previously unavailable due to the past presence of glaciers which, now, are vanishing due to global warming.
A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Colorado State University, and the National Park Service indicates previously unknown high altitude contests between two of America’s most sensational mammals – mountain goats and bighorn sheep – over access to minerals previously unavailable due to the past presence of glaciers which, now, are vanishing due to global warming.
The study also points to other coveted resources such as desert water and shade in brutal environs from Africa, Asia, and North America; species in these extreme environments contest access to these biologically important resources but such interactions have not previously been catalogued by individual species, their size, or their status as ‘native’ or ‘exotic’.
“While humans continue to be justifiably concerned about the climate-induced havoc we’re wreaking planet-wide, much has remained unknown about species aggression among our mammalian brethren” said Joel Berger, the lead author and Senior Scientist for WCS and the Barbara Cox-Anthony Chair of Wildlife Conservation at Colorado State University.
The findings from this work were distilled from fragmentary information dating backwards some four decades and included species as different as marmots and baboons, oryx and elephants, and rhinos, along with wild (i.e., feral) horses which displaced native pronghorn, mule deer, and elk from desert waters.
Read more at Wildlife Conservation Society
Image: Female mountain goat (nanny) in alpine meadow - Glacier National Park (CREDIT: Forest P. Hayes)
