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Study: Commercial Lion Farming in South Africa Could Be Harming, Not Helping, Wild Lions

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Friday, October 10, 2025

I recently co-authored a new peer-reviewed study that has delivered another blow to South Africa’s controversial commercial captive lion industry, finding no solid evidence that breeding lions in captivity benefits wild populations and warning that it may be doing the opposite. Our study, a collaboration with researchers from Blood Lions and World Animal Protection, paints a troubling picture of an industry that has exploded over the past three decades to around 350 facilities holding nearly 8,000 lions — alongside thousands of other big cats — for exhibition and breeding, tourism experiences, “canned” or captive trophy hunting, and the trade in bones and body parts. We examined 126 scientific papers and 37 organizational reports published between 2008 and 2023, flagging three major concerns: Currently there is no proof that the commercial industry aids conservation. Captive breeding may increase demand for lion parts. Links between legal and illegal trade could be strengthened. Bottle feeding and cub petting are popular revenue streams for captive predator facilities. Cubs are separated from their mothers at a young age, forcing the females back into estrus while visitors pay to interact with the cubs. © Blood Lions, used with permission. From cub-petting selfies to walking with lions, “canned” hunts, and the (now illegal) export of lion skeletons, the commercial predator industry is big business. The industry claims that commercial lion farming relieves pressure on wild lions; our study shows that it could actually fuel the demand for lion products and open the door to increased wildlife trafficking. Can Commercial Breeding Meet Consumer Demand? While proponents of commercial wildlife utilization assert that wildlife farming offers an effective means to meet the demand for wildlife commodities and relieve pressure on wild populations, our analysis of previous work by researchers and conservationists shows that this approach may be counterproductive. Farming wildlife may, in fact, put increased pressure on wild populations by promoting demand for wildlife products. This increases the risk of wildlife poaching and laundering through existing legal channels. It has also been noted that captive wildlife stock is sometimes renewed with animals from the wild to bring in fresh genes and prevent inbreeding or to breed for specific traits, such as dark manes. Countering arguments that farming wild animals is a logical means to protect wild populations, conservationists and researchers have highlighted that such mistaken assumptions may endanger wild populations. Other species have already demonstrated that commercial farming of wild species — such as tigers for bones and other body parts, bears for bile, and Southeast Asian porcupines for meat consumption — have all put increased pressure on wild populations. Consumer demand studies that have highlighted a preference for products sourced from wild-caught animals based on perceptions of medicinal strength or meat quality. Overall these studies highlight the faulty logic inherent in justifying the commercial breeding of wild animals as a supply-side approach. A lion skeleton prepared for export to be used in Traditional Chinese Medicine and trinkets. © Blood Lions, used with permission. There’s still a lot we don’t know. In our paper we highlighted the urgent need for scientific, peer-reviewed research to better understand consumer demand, economic comparisons between wild and farmed products, the genetics of captive lions, and the scale of illicit trade to get a more complete picture of the impact of commercial lion farming on wild lions. South African Wild Lion Populations Remain Stable, But What About Other Range States? In 2018 an assessment for African lions stated that the export of captive-bred lion trophies, live captive-bred lions for zoological or breeding purposes, and/or the trade of lion skeletons from the captive population would not harm South Africa’s wild lion population. The commercial captive lion industry has repeatedly failed to account for severe welfare issues, including malnourishment, obesity, overbreeding, inbreeding, poor keeping conditions, and health concerns. © Blood Lions, used with permission. But while wild lion populations in South Africa remain stable, our new research clearly highlights the risks associated with a commercial captive lion industry and the already vulnerable wild lion populations and other big cat species across other range states. Dr. Louise de Waal, director of Blood Lions and one of the paper’s authors, says South Africa’s stable wild lion population could change if the captive industry keeps growing: “We need to err on the side of caution globally, but in particular in African lion range states, to stop facilitating further emergence of commercial captive predator breeding and trade. This is particularly relevant when considering the increased wildlife trafficking opportunities between the African continent and Southeast Asia through, for example, the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure development strategy by the Chinese government.” Welfare Concerns Continue The industry also has a long record of animal welfare violations. Some of the most recent cases include a successful conviction for animal cruelty after starved lions were discovered at a farm in May 2023. In another National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) welfare case in 2025, horrific animal cruelty and neglect were uncovered at a notorious predator facility, where at least 80 tigers were kept for commercial purposes, one of whom had resorted to self-mutilation to relieve stress and pain from untreated injuries. Commercial captive-keeping conditions fail to provide adequate living conditions for sentient apex predators, including the ability to hunt and roam freely. © Blood Lions, used with permission. These aren’t isolated incidents. Douglas Wolhuter, national chief inspector and manager of the NSPCA Wildlife Protection Unit, reported that they had conducted 176 inspections of captive lion facilities across South Africa from 2022 to 2024. Wolhuter outlined that in most cases, captive predators were denied even the bare basics like access to clean drinking water, proper food, shelter, environmental enrichment, hygienic living conditions, and appropriate veterinary care, including treatment of parasitic infestations. Many of the captive predator- and lion-breeding facilities required repeat visits due to unaddressed noncompliances. Their inspections resulted in 64 warnings, 10 formal Animal Welfare Notices, and 21 warrants granted in 2022 alone. That year, as a result, 23 severely compromised lions had to be euthanized. Our research, combined with these on-the-ground realities, provides another catalyst for South Africa’s Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, Dr. Dion George, to take urgent action by implementing a moratorium on breeding and a time-bound phaseout plan. It also signals the serious need for caution: Lion farming in South Africa isn’t saving wild lions. It could even be accelerating their decline, particularly in already vulnerable lion range states across other African countries. Previously in The Revelator: In South Africa, Tigers and Other Captive Predators Are Still Exploited for Profit. Legislation Offers Pitiful Protection The post Study: Commercial Lion Farming in South Africa Could Be Harming, Not Helping, Wild Lions appeared first on The Revelator.

As we’ve seen with tigers and other threatened species, captive lion breeding may stimulate consumer demand and put additional pressure on wild populations across African home ranges. The post Study: Commercial Lion Farming in South Africa Could Be Harming, Not Helping, Wild Lions appeared first on The Revelator.

I recently co-authored a new peer-reviewed study that has delivered another blow to South Africa’s controversial commercial captive lion industry, finding no solid evidence that breeding lions in captivity benefits wild populations and warning that it may be doing the opposite.

Our study, a collaboration with researchers from Blood Lions and World Animal Protection, paints a troubling picture of an industry that has exploded over the past three decades to around 350 facilities holding nearly 8,000 lions — alongside thousands of other big cats — for exhibition and breeding, tourism experiences, “canned” or captive trophy hunting, and the trade in bones and body parts.

We examined 126 scientific papers and 37 organizational reports published between 2008 and 2023, flagging three major concerns:

    • Currently there is no proof that the commercial industry aids conservation.
    • Captive breeding may increase demand for lion parts.
    • Links between legal and illegal trade could be strengthened.
Bottle feeding and cub petting are popular revenue streams for captive predator facilities. Cubs are separated from their mothers at a young age, forcing the females back into estrus while visitors pay to interact with the cubs. © Blood Lions, used with permission.

From cub-petting selfies to walking with lions, “canned” hunts, and the (now illegal) export of lion skeletons, the commercial predator industry is big business. The industry claims that commercial lion farming relieves pressure on wild lions; our study shows that it could actually fuel the demand for lion products and open the door to increased wildlife trafficking.

Can Commercial Breeding Meet Consumer Demand?

While proponents of commercial wildlife utilization assert that wildlife farming offers an effective means to meet the demand for wildlife commodities and relieve pressure on wild populations, our analysis of previous work by researchers and conservationists shows that this approach may be counterproductive.

Farming wildlife may, in fact, put increased pressure on wild populations by promoting demand for wildlife products. This increases the risk of wildlife poaching and laundering through existing legal channels.

It has also been noted that captive wildlife stock is sometimes renewed with animals from the wild to bring in fresh genes and prevent inbreeding or to breed for specific traits, such as dark manes.

Countering arguments that farming wild animals is a logical means to protect wild populations, conservationists and researchers have highlighted that such mistaken assumptions may endanger wild populations.

Other species have already demonstrated that commercial farming of wild species — such as tigers for bones and other body parts, bears for bile, and Southeast Asian porcupines for meat consumption — have all put increased pressure on wild populations. Consumer demand studies that have highlighted a preference for products sourced from wild-caught animals based on perceptions of medicinal strength or meat quality. Overall these studies highlight the faulty logic inherent in justifying the commercial breeding of wild animals as a supply-side approach.

A lion skeleton prepared for export to be used in Traditional Chinese Medicine and trinkets. © Blood Lions, used with permission.

There’s still a lot we don’t know. In our paper we highlighted the urgent need for scientific, peer-reviewed research to better understand consumer demand, economic comparisons between wild and farmed products, the genetics of captive lions, and the scale of illicit trade to get a more complete picture of the impact of commercial lion farming on wild lions.

South African Wild Lion Populations Remain Stable, But What About Other Range States?

In 2018 an assessment for African lions stated that the export of captive-bred lion trophies, live captive-bred lions for zoological or breeding purposes, and/or the trade of lion skeletons from the captive population would not harm South Africa’s wild lion population.

The commercial captive lion industry has repeatedly failed to account for severe welfare issues, including malnourishment, obesity, overbreeding, inbreeding, poor keeping conditions, and health concerns. © Blood Lions, used with permission.

But while wild lion populations in South Africa remain stable, our new research clearly highlights the risks associated with a commercial captive lion industry and the already vulnerable wild lion populations and other big cat species across other range states.

Dr. Louise de Waal, director of Blood Lions and one of the paper’s authors, says South Africa’s stable wild lion population could change if the captive industry keeps growing:

“We need to err on the side of caution globally, but in particular in African lion range states, to stop facilitating further emergence of commercial captive predator breeding and trade. This is particularly relevant when considering the increased wildlife trafficking opportunities between the African continent and Southeast Asia through, for example, the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure development strategy by the Chinese government.”

Welfare Concerns Continue

The industry also has a long record of animal welfare violations. Some of the most recent cases include a successful conviction for animal cruelty after starved lions were discovered at a farm in May 2023. In another National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) welfare case in 2025, horrific animal cruelty and neglect were uncovered at a notorious predator facility, where at least 80 tigers were kept for commercial purposes, one of whom had resorted to self-mutilation to relieve stress and pain from untreated injuries.

Commercial captive-keeping conditions fail to provide adequate living conditions for sentient apex predators, including the ability to hunt and roam freely. © Blood Lions, used with permission.

These aren’t isolated incidents. Douglas Wolhuter, national chief inspector and manager of the NSPCA Wildlife Protection Unit, reported that they had conducted 176 inspections of captive lion facilities across South Africa from 2022 to 2024. Wolhuter outlined that in most cases, captive predators were denied even the bare basics like access to clean drinking water, proper food, shelter, environmental enrichment, hygienic living conditions, and appropriate veterinary care, including treatment of parasitic infestations. Many of the captive predator- and lion-breeding facilities required repeat visits due to unaddressed noncompliances. Their inspections resulted in 64 warnings, 10 formal Animal Welfare Notices, and 21 warrants granted in 2022 alone. That year, as a result, 23 severely compromised lions had to be euthanized.

Our research, combined with these on-the-ground realities, provides another catalyst for South Africa’s Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment, Dr. Dion George, to take urgent action by implementing a moratorium on breeding and a time-bound phaseout plan.

It also signals the serious need for caution: Lion farming in South Africa isn’t saving wild lions. It could even be accelerating their decline, particularly in already vulnerable lion range states across other African countries.

Previously in The Revelator:

In South Africa, Tigers and Other Captive Predators Are Still Exploited for Profit. Legislation Offers Pitiful Protection

The post Study: Commercial Lion Farming in South Africa Could Be Harming, Not Helping, Wild Lions appeared first on The Revelator.

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Saving Zimbabwe’s Vultures

From poisonings to collisions with power lines, these birds face many threats. But as they decline, so does their ability to control the spread of deadly diseases. The post Saving Zimbabwe’s Vultures appeared first on The Revelator.

A narrow road meanders through Zimbabwe’s Vumba Mountains, where sweet songs of various bird species fill the air on a sunny afternoon. The distant chatter of monkeys adds to this wildlife melody. But one sound, once common, no longer echoes over the mountains: the calls of soaring vultures. These majestic birds have disappeared from this part of Zimbabwe. Big game poachers despise vultures for circling over the carcasses of dead animals — a natural process that inadvertently “snitches” poachers’ illicit activities to game park rangers. Poachers have retaliated by lacing the bodies of their prey with deadly poison, which vultures consume, dramatically increasing the killers’ body counts. That’s not the only threat these birds face. Habitat loss is a big issue. In some cases vultures are killed for their parts, which are used in traditional “medicine” in some cultures of Zimbabwe. And to a lesser extent, power lines have also killed vultures, who die from electrocution or after collisions with the structures. The threats have all but wiped out the vultures, in this area known for its birds. “Birding in the Vumba as well as the Burma Valley area [in Zimbabwe] is considered a shining jewel in the Eastern Highlands, and tourists travel far and wide for the very special birds found here. However, vultures are no longer a presence,” says Sue Fenwick, a trustee of the Friends of the Vumba, an organization working to protect wildlife in the area. The group’s mission faces many challenges. In this part of Zimbabwe, illegal farming activities have decimated vast tracts of wildlife habitats. Benhildah Antonio, who manages the Preventing Extinctions Program at Birdlife Zimbabwe, says the twin threats of farming and poisons intersect. In addition to poachers’ poisons, Antonio says vultures are often poisoned unintentionally. This is prevalent in farming communities surrounding national parks, where lions prey on livestock. “Farmers put poison on carcasses to target lions or any other predators but unintentionally end up poisoning vultures,” Antonio says. “The vultures will die in large numbers because of their feeding habits. One carcass can have 50 or more vultures feeding on it.” A Loss That Echoes Vultures’ disappearance from Zimbabwe and other African countries comes with an environmental cost. “We call them the ‘clean-up crew,’” says Antonio. “When the vultures feed on dead carcasses, they help us with cleaning the environment; they help us with sanitation. That’s the main ecosystem service we get from vultures. They do this free service. They also reduce the spread of … rabies, anthrax, tuberculosis, and other diseases.” When vultures eat a carcass, they can digest pathogens without getting sick. At the same time, vultures reduce the available food sources for feral dogs and other scavengers, thereby suppressing diseases like rabies. Many Species, Similar Threats According to Birdlife Zimbabwe, Africa is home to 11 vulture species, six of which can be found in Zimbabwe. All but one of the species in Zimbabwe are threatened or endangered. The International Union of Conservation of Nature Red List, which assesses the conservation status of species around the world, classifies the white-backed vulture, white-headed vulture, and hooded vulture as critically endangered. The lappet-faced vulture and cape vulture are categorized as endangered and “vulnerable to extinction” respectively, while the palm-nut vulture is listed as “least concern” (although it was last assessed a decade ago). Regardless of their conservation status, all vultures in Zimbabwe have special protection under the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Act, making it illegal to kill a vulture, even in cases of accidental harm.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Jeannee Sacken (@authorjeanneesacken) The six species have specific habitat niches, but many of their ranges overlap in Zimbabwe. The lappet-faced vulture breeds in Lowveld semi-arid areas like Gonarezhou National Park, while the white-headed vulture breeds in Hwange National Park and Gonarezhou. Cape vultures rely on cliffs for breeding and roosting, particularly in the central parts of the country. The hooded vulture breeds in low-lying areas of Tsholotsho and Gokwe. Palm-nut vultures, though considered rare in Zimbabwe, are seen mostly in the country’s Eastern Highlands. But no matter where they’re found, they face the same dangers — and vultures’ declines aren’t unique to Zimbabwe. A Worldwide Threat José Tavares, director of the Vulture Conservation Foundation, says the major threats to vultures in Africa and globally come from the ingestion of poison baits. “These [poison baits] are mostly put to deal with human-wildlife conflict, although in Southern Africa sentinel poisoning has also been significant,” Tavares says, referring to the poisoning to prevent circling vultures from giving away poachers’ locations. “The illegal poisoning of wildlife is a non-discriminatory measure that has a profound impact.” Zimbabwe presents a powerful illustration of the problem. According to the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) 2019-2022 Action Plan, the country experienced increased vulture poisoning incidents that are causing vulture populations to decline and harming other species. Mass poisoning events cited in the report include 191 vultures in Gonarezhou National Park in 2012, 40 at a farm in Fort Rixon in 2014, 22 in Sinamatella in 2015, 43 at Sentinel Ranch in 2016, 94 on the border of Gonarezhou National Park in 2017, 24 at Sengwa Wildlife Research Station in 2017, 28 in Main Camp in 2018, and 21 in Hwange National Park in 2019. There is no recent data from Zimparks covering the post-COVID period. According to former Zimparks director Fulton Mangwanya, a single vulture provides over US$11,000 worth of ecosystem services. “By halting the spread of disease, they are worth much more to society in saved health service costs, not to mention contributing significant revenue to the tourism sector as well,” Mangwanya wrote in the action plan. This poses direct threats to humans. In India, for example, one study reveals that between 2000 and 2005, the loss of vultures caused around 100,000 additional human deaths annually, resulting in more than £53 billion per year in mortality damages, or the economic costs associated with premature deaths. These deaths, experts say, were due to the spread of disease and bacteria that vultures could have otherwise removed from the environment. Has the decline in vultures caused similar problems in Zimbabwe? Kerri Wolter, chief executive officer of VulPro, a South African nonprofit organization devoted to safeguarding Africa’s vulture species, says it’s impossible to link the recent outbreak of anthrax in Gonarezhou National Park to the massive poisoning deaths of 280 vultures in the park in the past few years. The anthrax outbreak last year killed more than 120 animals, including four elephants, 75 buffaloes, and 38 kudus. However, more studies are needed on the possible link between the declining vulture population in Zimbabwe and rising cases of anthrax in the country’s national parks. But Wolter says the future of these birds is dire and the threat of vulture species’ extinctions is a very real possibility. “If we cannot get a grip on poisonings, I fear we will continue to see losses and some species disappearing,” she says. Saving Zimbabwe’s Vultures With an understanding of these threats, local and international groups have mobilized several efforts in Zimbabwe that aim to save the country’s last vultures. Birdlife Zimbabwe, for example, is working with communities to resolve human-wildlife conflict issues so they don’t end up causing vulture deaths as collateral damage. “We have created vulture support groups in [Zimbabwe’s] Gwayi area, where community members do vulture monitoring and educate other community members about vulture conservation,” Antonio says. “We are also educating and building capacity for law-enforcement agents so that they are conscious about vulture conservation and crimes against vultures. We also work with traditional healers because of belief-based use of vultures in traditional medicines.” And Tavares says the Vulture Conservation Foundation is fighting illegal poisoning through engaging with the competent authorities for the proper enforcement of the law and adequate investigation of illegal poisoning incidents to reduce impunity. Wolter says their work impacts the whole Southern Africa region. “We lead by example and have assisted, trained, and worked with Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust and Jabulani Safaris [in Zimbabwe] and continue to do so,” she says. Other efforts, including one funded by tourism, help vultures by giving them what they need most: safe food. The Victoria Falls Safari Collection, operated by the Africa Albida Tourism hospitality group, runs the Vulture Culture Experience at Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, where the birds are provided with food, typically animal carcasses, to support their survival and well-being.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Estnat Engsted (@ekewildphotography) “Our … conservation initiative has been highly successful in providing a safe food source for hundreds of vultures every day and reducing the risks of poisoning they face in the wild,” says Anald Musonza, head of sales and marketing at Victoria Falls Safari Collection. Musonza says the program has also become a powerful educational platform, where thousands of visitors learn about the plight of these highly endangered raptors and turn into ambassadors for vulture conservation. “Even when our hotels stood still during COVID, the Vulture Culture Experience never stopped — that’s how seriously we take conservation,” Musonza says. He says they work with VulPro as well as the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust on this project. “While the activity is free of charge, guests may make donations towards vulture research, and $1 from selected dishes at our MaKuwa-Kuwa Restaurant is donated to vulture conservation programs,” he says. Musonza says their biggest challenges have been in constantly raising awareness of the threats vultures face and the significant role they play in the ecosystem. “The poisoning of these birds is also of great concern, which is why education plays a crucial role in this conservation initiative,” Musonza says. Previously in The Revelator: Newest Flock of Wild California Condors Faces an Old Threat: Lead Poisoning The post Saving Zimbabwe’s Vultures appeared first on The Revelator.

Animals
Conservation
Culture

Protected areas in the Hauraki Gulf nearly triple under a new law – but it comes with a catch

An exception for commercial ring-net fishing in some protected areas of the Hauraki Gulf means they don’t count towards the global goal of protecting 30% by 2030.

Getty ImagesA new law that almost triples the protected area in the Hauraki Gulf Tīkapa Moana – New Zealand’s largest marine park at more than 1.2 million hectares, surrounding Auckland and the Coromandel peninsula – is something to be celebrated. But it comes with compromises, and it is especially disappointing that some forms of commercial fishing will continue in some areas. This week, parliament passed the Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill into law. It increases areas under some form of protection from 6% to 18% by extending two existing marine reserves and adding 12 high protection areas and five seafloor protection areas. These new areas add to the diversity of habitats under protection, including under-represented soft sediment ecosystems, and provide new opportunities for customary management. While fishing will be restricted in 18% of the gulf, there is a carve-out for commercial ring-net fishing in high protection areas. This diminishes their status as protected areas and makes it more difficult for New Zealand to fulfil its promise under the Global Biodiversity Framework to protect 30% of the marine environment by 2030. We should also recognise this is only a starting point in restoring the mauri (life force) of the gulf. Animals that live in the gulf’s water column remain vulnerable, and given the rate of environmental change in New Zealand’s waters, we need to fast-track the conservation process. Levels of protection The new legislation has three forms of protection. Marine reserves are complete no-take zones. High protection areas (HPAs) allow for restoration activities and provide for customary practices of tangata whenua. Seafloor protection areas (SPAs) protect habitats on the seabed, but they allow for activities that don’t damage them, such as non-bottom fishing. All three forms of protection share a common theme in restricting large-scale seafloor disturbances from bottom trawling and dredging, large-scale removal of non-living material such as sand, and dumping or discharge of waste. The protection of the seafloor is critical to preserving the many benefits we gain from its ecosystems, including carbon storage, the processing of excess nutrients, provision of food for fish, and nursery habitats. HPAs value Māori management and support the restoration of nature and culture. This opens up opportunities to undertake active restoration to accelerate passive recovery. Such activities may include large-scale kina (sea urchin) removal and re-seeding of shellfish populations. Many of the HPAs are alongside areas where significant restorative efforts are happening on land. This acknowledges land-sea connections and these areas will hopefully become successful examples of what integrated management can achieve. Lessons from NZ’s oldest marine reserve The Cape Rodney-Okakari Point (Goat Island) Marine Reserve at Leigh became New Zealand’s first legislated marine reserve 50 years ago. This reserve, on the north-east coast of the Hauraki Gulf, will quadruple in size under the new law. It has taught us many lessons about how coastal reef ecosystems are affected by human activity and how marine reserves benefit people, including fishers. For example, we know that marine reserves maintain populations of predators, such as large lobsters and snapper, which stop sea urchins from becoming too abundant and over-grazing coastal kelp forests. In the protected waters of the Goat Island marine reserve, snapper can grow big and populate other areas across the Hauraki Gulf. Getty Images The ability to protect large snapper has also demonstrated that size matters in fish reproduction. The marine reserve contributes disproportionately to the snapper population across a large part of the gulf. If this is scaled with the new protection area, it should lead to a more productive fishery that will benefit all. The expansion of the Cape Rodney-Okarkai Point Marine Reserve and the Te Whanganui-A-Hei Marine Reserve at Hahei will open up new opportunities for learning about connections between reef and soft-sediment habitats and how they influence biodiversity. Fast-tracking marine conservation Overfishing, pollution, climate change and invasive species mean marine ecosystems are changing rapidly. Management responses must do so as well. Successive State of the Gulf Reports have documented the continued decline of its ecosystems. This new legislation builds on decades of efforts to protect the gulf. It follows the 2016 Sea Change/Tai Timu Tai Pari marine spatial plan and the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000 which provided special recognition for the gulf but no additional protection. During times of rapid environmental change, we need strong connections between science, policy and management. Otherwise, we’re at risk of missing the connections and processes responsible for ecological tipping points. This new law must not be the end to marine protection and restoration of the Hauraki Gulf. Early European settlers reported an abundance of fish, invertebrates, whales and dolphins and we are a long way from these historical baselines. The new measures protect from some important forms of stress, namely overfishing and seafloor disturbance, but there are many others that continue to affect the gulf, including those that begin on land. Unless we work to substantially reduce the flow of sediment, nutrients and microplastics into the gulf, recovery will be slow. We also need to remember what these new measures do not protect: the fish, marine mammals and seabirds that live or move through the water column or depend on it. Our research and experience so far highlights the need to apply systems thinking to the management of marine environments. This means recognising and accounting for the dependencies between the ecological health and economic and social wealth of the Hauraki Gulf. Conrad Pilditch receives funding from the Department of Conservation, MBIE, regional councils and PROs. He is affiliated with the Mussel Reef Restoration Trust, the Whangateau Catchment Collective and New Zealand Marine Sciences Society.Simon Francis Thrush receives funding from MBIE and philanthropy. He is affiliated with the Royal Society New Zealand, NZ Marine Sciences Society and Whangateau Harbour Care.

Animals
Climate
Conservation

This 'Clock' Could Warn of Hidden Stresses to Animals, Offering a Long-Sought Signal That a Population Is Nearing Collapse

The epigenetic clock measures biological age and could help scientists assess the health of polar bears, dolphins, baboons and other threatened creatures "while recovery is still possible"

This ‘Clock’ Could Warn of Hidden Stresses to Animals, Offering a Long-Sought Signal That a Population Is Nearing Collapse The epigenetic clock measures biological age and could help scientists assess the health of polar bears, dolphins, baboons and other threatened creatures “while recovery is still possible” The epigenetic clock is emerging as a wildlife conservation tool. Knowable Magazine Key takeaways: Epigenetic clocks as a conservation tool Conservationists have been searching for a biological marker to hint that an animal population is in distress so that they can address warning signs before a collapse becomes inevitable. A recent preprint study used epigenetic clocks, a marker of “biological age,” to find that polar bear populations are aging more quickly than previous generations did, suggesting melting sea ice is taking a toll on their health. Wildlife conservation is a race against time—too often, a losing one. Typically, by the time scientists detect signs of species decline, populations have already collapsed. Genetic diversity is already depleted. Birth rates have plunged. And by the time these biological red flags are seen, the window for effective intervention has nearly closed. That’s what happened with the passenger pigeon: Once the most abundant bird in North America, it vanished in the blink of an ecological eye—wiped out by unchecked hunting and habitat destruction before anyone realized how fast the population was unraveling. The same story played out with the Chinese river dolphin, the Pyrenean ibex and the Caribbean monk seal. Silent declines went unnoticed for years until the tipping point had passed, leaving conservationists to document extinctions instead of preventing them. And the northern white rhino? By the time the world finally paid attention, the damage was irreversible. Poachers had reduced the species to two surviving individuals—both female. Determined to avoid more preventable losses, scientists have begun hunting for molecular warning signs that appear before populations spiral. But early leads, such as stress hormones and the length of the specialized tips of chromosomes—telomeres—have proved fickle, too easily swayed by the daily chaos of life in the wild. That’s why many scientists are now pinning their hopes on a novel tool called an epigenetic clock. This molecular timekeeper doesn’t keep time like a wristwatch, though. Instead, it measures “biological age,” a hidden ledger that can echo the calendar’s count but also offers a more nuanced reflection of how fast an organism is wearing down from stress, disease and environmental hardship. Epigenetic clocks work by analyzing patterns of chemical tags called methyl groups that get added to or subtracted from DNA at predictable sites across the genome as animals grow older. Some of these methylation signatures are remarkably stable and tightly linked to aging across many species. And, crucially for conservationists, they can be read from a simple tissue or blood sample. In the lab, researchers analyze skin biopsies from Lahille’s dolphins to measure DNA methylation patterns—molecular marks that reveal both true age and signs of accelerated aging. Oceanographic Museum Prof. Eliézer de C. Rios / FURG, Southern Brazil That makes epigenetic clocks especially valuable for elusive or long-lived species, where accurate age data are often missing. Wildlife biologists are already using these clocks to understand the age structures of animal populations, offering insights into their reproduction, survival and longevity. But the clocks hold deeper promise. When an animal’s biological age runs higher than its chronological one, it can signal physiological strain—a kind of molecular distress flare that may go off before any visible signs of problems. The potential for detecting accelerated aging before a population begins to visibly collapse is what excites Colin Garroway, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Manitoba in Canada. “Almost everything else we have is a lagging indicator of species decline,” he says. “This is at least potentially forward-looking.” Garroway’s confidence in the power of epigenetic clocks took shape through a study of polar bears from the Canadian Arctic. In work now posted on the preprint server bioRxiv, which has not yet undergone peer review, he and his colleagues found that bears born in recent decades are aging markedly faster than those from earlier generations—their biological ages outpacing their chronological ones. The likely cause, the researchers conclude: Longer ice-free periods are stranding bears on land, cutting off access to the seals that form the core of their diet, ultimately sapping the fat reserves they need to survive. “The change is too fast and too significant for them,” says co-author Evan Richardson, a polar bear ecologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, the government agency that partially funded the study. That burden is then evident in the telltale molecular marks on the animals’ DNA. Richardson hopes the findings will force the “harder discussions” around polar bear management. But beyond sounding the alarm for this one imperiled species, he and his colleagues are hopeful that the wider conservation community will embrace epigenetic clocks as a proactive tool to safeguard biodiversity—before the point of no return. As Meaghan Jones, a University of Manitoba medical geneticist involved in the research, puts it: “This is a way to monitor populations in real time and see how stress is impacting them while recovery is still possible.” Clocking in The idea of tracking biological age through molecular changes first gained traction in studies of human DNA. Beginning in the early 2010s, biogerontologist Steve Horvath—then at the University of California, Los Angeles and now with the anti-aging biotech company Altos Labs—identified dozens and later hundreds of sites in the genome where DNA methylation tags were predictably gained or lost as people grew older. He used methylation patterns to construct a statistical model that could estimate a person’s age, launching the first epigenetic clocks. Horvath’s clocks emerged as powerful health indicators, with individuals whose biological age exceeded their chronological one showing a higher risk of chronic illness or early death—and that same logic, outlined in the 2025 issue of the Annual Review of Public Health, soon found a foothold in wildlife biology, too. Wild wood mice are helping scientists at the University of Edinburgh uncover how environmental factors such as food shortages and parasite infections accelerate biological aging. suffolk_jim / iNaturalist In 2021, for example, a team led by Jenny Tung, an evolutionary anthropologist now at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, developed a baboon-specific version of the epigenetic clock and applied it to a wild population in Kenya’s Amboseli basin. The researchers found that males with a high dominance rank tended to be biologically older than their lower-status peers, even when their chronological ages were the same. It was a compelling demonstration that the clock could connect ecologically relevant pressures to accelerated aging in a wild animal. And contrary to what might be expected—that social success would track with better health—it revealed the biological toll of dominance. “Attaining and maintaining high rank is costly,” Tung says. Other studies linking life stressors to accelerated aging would eventually follow—Garroway’s polar bear work among the most prominent—but most early adopters of epigenetic clocks for wildlife biology focused on a more basic goal: filling gaps in demographic data. Traditionally, estimating the age of wildlife involves methods such as tooth extraction to count growth rings, which is labor-intensive and intrusive. Epigenetic clocks, in contrast, require a small tissue or blood sample, often obtainable through remote methods like dart biopsies. From there, researchers extract DNA and use lab methods to read the methylation patterns known to change with age. Then, they apply statistical models to compare the patterns with animals of known ages. Inspired by the work of Horvath and others, wildlife biologists began adapting epigenetic clocks for the animals they study: humpback whales, lampreys, sea turtles, salmon. Then, in 2017, Horvath secured a $1.5 million grant to build clocks for a menagerie of species. Lions and tigers and bears Horvath began cold-emailing field biologists, zoo veterinarians and wildlife researchers, inviting anyone with blood, DNA or other archived tissues in their freezers to join the project. “Whoever had samples became a partner,” he says. Specimens poured in—for nearly 350 animal species in total, representing 25 of the 26 known taxonomic orders of mammal. Horvath generated clocks for elephants, bats, zebras, monkeys, marmots, mole rats and more. From this, he and his global network of collaborators built a universal mammalian epigenetic clock, one that factored in each species’ maximum lifespan alongside observable shifts in DNA methylation over time. The result was a clock that could accurately gauge an individual’s age, both chronological and biological, from a DNA sample—not just in humans or lab mice, but in otters, opossums and Tasmanian devils, too. Horvath’s main aim was to explore how aging unfolds across the animal kingdom and what accelerates the process—potentially uncovering antiaging mechanisms that might be replicated pharmaceutically. But there were clear applications for conservation, starting with filling in missing details about survival and reproduction in the wild. In Alaska, for example, wildlife biologist Susannah Woodruff, then with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and now with the state’s Department of Fish and Game, turned to the pan-mammalian clock to estimate the ages of the state’s polar bears. Working independently of the Canadian team pursuing similar questions, she and her colleagues first ran samples through this “universal” clock and found it performed reasonably well, producing estimates within a year or two of the bears’ true ages. “That’s pretty good,” Woodruff says. Building a clock tailored specifically to polar bears was better still. Doing that required getting blood samples from known-age individuals—something not feasible for every species—but in Woodruff’s case, she had access to nearly 200 such bears. And as a head-to-head comparison published in July showed, the bear-specific clock yielded more precise and reliable results, pinpointing age to within plus-or-minus nine months. Epigenetic clock studies show that polar bears born in recent decades are aging faster than earlier generations, likely due to shrinking sea ice that limits their hunting opportunities and erodes fat reserves. Susannah Woodruff Short of developing a bespoke species clock, the next best thing can be to adapt one from closely related kin. That’s the approach taken to study the Lahille’s dolphin by conservation medicine veterinarian Ashley Barratclough of the nonprofit National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego. This vulnerable subspecies of bottlenose dolphin is found off the coast of South America, with fewer than 600 left in the wild. Few have reliable age records. Barratclough and her colleagues first created a clock for the common bottlenose dolphin, using blood and skin samples collected from known-age animals maintained by the U.S. Navy. In collaboration with Brazilian marine biologist Pedro Fruet, Barratclough then applied the tool to the genetically distinct Lahille’s dolphin, filling in demographic black holes that, among other things, identified reproductive-age females, thus providing a focal point for conservationists to target in their efforts to rebuild the population. “For an endangered cetacean species like the Lahille’s bottlenose dolphin, every piece of demographic information is extremely important to understand the future of the population,” says Fruet, founder of the conservation group Kaosa. “And the epigenetic clock tool is helping us to refine and get estimates that we couldn’t otherwise.” Notably, in Brazil’s Patos Lagoon, where the true ages of some Lahille’s dolphins are known, the tool also revealed signs of accelerated aging, notes Fruet—a finding he fears may reflect the impact of pollutants from industry and agriculture, among other stresses. Barratclough has documented similar effects in the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, where dolphins exposed to oil pollution from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster appear to have aged faster than their counterparts living in cleaner waters elsewhere. Conservation biologists use remote dart biopsies to collect tissue from Lahille’s dolphins, a vulnerable subspecies with fewer than 600 individuals left in the wild. The samples provide crucial data on their age structure and reproductive potential. Pedro Fruet / Kaosa Worse for wear As evidence grows that epigenetic clocks can not only reveal true age but also flag premature aging, researchers are beginning to probe how environmental hardships shape the tempo of aging in the wild. At the University of Edinburgh, for example, evolutionary biologist Tom Little and disease ecologist Amy Pedersen are experimentally manipulating factors such as food availability and parasite load in wild wood mouse populations, then tracking the epigenetic fallout over time. “If you look at the human literature, we’ve got all these things—diet, stress, infections—that we know influence biological age,” Little says. “But in wildlife, we just don’t know what environmental features drive animals to be gray before their time.” Such research, however, requires running large numbers of samples through expensive molecular tests, and a major barrier to wider-scale adoption of wildlife clocks remains cost. The most commonly used testing platform—the Horvath Mammalian Array, based on Horvath’s research, manufactured by the genomics giant Illumina and sold by the nonprofit Epigenetic Clock Development Foundation—runs about $200 per sample, which adds up quickly when trying to analyze dozens or hundreds of wild animals. “It becomes very cost-prohibitive, especially in my budgetary world,” says Aaron Shafer, a population geneticist at Trent University in Canada who is studying whether epigenetic clocks can reveal premature signs of aging linked to chronic wasting disease, a deadly neurodegenerative illness affecting deer populations across North America. Shafer is spearheading the development of lower-cost, custom-built tests to make the technology more accessible for conservation use. In parallel, Garroway and Jones, together with Levi Newediuk, a wildlife ecologist at Mount Royal University in Canada, have been working on ways to streamline the use of epigenetic clocks in wildlife research so it can be applied in more species and settings. They also want to drive home the relevance of epigenetic clock data to policy decisions by connecting biological aging directly to habitat degradation. In their polar bear study, for instance, the researchers didn’t just document faster aging. They tied those biological shifts to tangible environmental change. Bears born in recent decades, as Arctic temperatures have risen, showed clear signs of accelerated biological aging, the scientists found. And unpublished follow-up analyses indicate that the effect plays out unevenly across regions, shaped by the distinct ecological pressures faced by each population of bears. According to Newediuk, the trend was most pronounced around Hudson Bay, where seasonal sea ice breaks up earlier and forms later than it once did, curtailing hunting opportunities and limiting access to seals. In contrast, bears from regions with more stable ice, such as those living near the Beaufort Sea and around other parts of the high Arctic, are aging more slowly. The findings, in other words, lend weight to long-standing concerns that vanishing sea ice isn’t just threatening the bears’ hunting grounds—it’s quietly eroding their biological resilience. “They’re in trouble, for sure,” Newediuk says. Fortunately for the threatened wildlife, accelerated aging isn’t necessarily a one-way street. As Tung’s investigation of baboons has shown, it can be slowed—potentially reversed. Tung found that when male baboons lost dominance rank, their epigenetic clocks seemed to slow down. In a couple instances, biological age even ticked backward as males fell in social status, despite the passage of time. That means the rate of aging is “not necessarily a fixed trait,” says Tung. And if it can be delayed in baboons, perhaps it can be rolled back in other species as well. “It opens the door to that possibility.”Knowable Magazine is an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Get the latest Science stories in your inbox.

Animals
Health
Chemicals

Majestic wild horses are trampling Mono Lake's otherworldly landscape. The feds plan a roundup

Federal officials plan to round up wild horses roaming the Eastern Sierra, citing hazards and damage. But local tribes and others seek a different outcome.

Several dozen horses calmly graze along the shores of Mono Lake, a sparkling saline expanse spread out before the jagged Sierra Nevada mountains. The September sun is blazing. A pair of brown horses come up side by side and stare intensely at an approaching visitor.These wild equines soon may disappear from beside the ancient lake. The prospect is stirring emotional disagreement over the future of the herd, which has surged to more than three times what federal officials say the land can support.“These horses deserve a place to roam and be free, but around Mono Lake is not the place,” said Bartshe Miller of the Mono Lake Committee, an environmental nonprofit. Bartshe Miller, Eastern Sierra policy director for the Mono Lake Committee, looks out onto the landscape at Warm Springs, a remote area on the east side of Mono Lake. Earlier this year, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management approved a plan to round up and remove hundreds of wild horses roaming beyond the roughly 200,000 acres designated for them along the California and Nevada border. No date has been set, but it could be as soon as this fall.It would be a relief for some. Environmentalists say the horses are degrading the otherworldly landscape at Mono Lake, including bird habitat and its famed tufa — textured rock columns that would look at home on Mars. Ranchers say the animals are gobbling down plants needed to sustain their cattle. Federal officials highlight the safety hazard posed by horses that have wandered onto highways.Others see the move as a travesty. One method to oust the horses would use helicopters to drive them into a trap, which animal welfare groups say creates dangerous, even deadly, situations for horses. A pending federal bill would ban the practice.Local tribes and nonprofits have partnered to fight the roundup plan, arguing that the Indigenous community should be tapped to manage the animals that roam their ancestral lands. A separate group of plaintiffs has sued the government, claiming it’s reneging on its duty to protect the horses. A group of horses roams near the community of Benton, Calif., not far from the Nevada border. Ronda Kauk, of the Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a tribe, stands near wild horses. “We’re all living spirits,” said Ronda Kauk, a member of the Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a tribe. “And it’s sad that people just don’t care about another living thing because they think it doesn’t belong there.”Unseen evolutionFor 36 years, Dave Marquart was part of a small team that monitored wetlands rimming Mono Lake, places so inaccessible even four-wheel drives can get stuck. Flung out far on the landscape, only wildlife could enjoy them. The area was a major nesting site for yellow-headed black birds, red-winged black birds, marsh wrens, soras and Virginia rails.“There weren’t a lot of people that saw the transition that I saw, from healthy wetlands to completely trampled and devastated wetlands,” said Marquart, who was an interpretive naturalist for the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve until he retired in 2019. “It was quite a drastic change.”Marquart recalled a time when he’d encounter fewer than 50 horses. They’d bolt when they saw his vehicle coming. That fear faded and their ranks grew. Over time, he said, they stamped ponds and urinated and defecated in the water. The birds stopped showing up. Bartshe Miller holds grass he said was pulled up by the roots by wild horses roaming near Mono Lake. According to Miller, horses started arriving near the lake around 2015. Before retiring, Marquart said, he helped organize a field trip involving the Forest Service, BLM and State Parks to showcase the impacts.“Everybody saw that it was an issue and felt that something needed to be done,” he said.Today, sizable mounds of horse manure dot Warm Springs, a remote area along the eastern edge of Mono Lake that Marquart had raised the alarm about during his tenure. White bones of fallen equines rest in the alkaline meadows. Chestnut fur gleamed on a hoof attached to a leg bone.Miller, the Mono Lake Committee’s Eastern Sierra policy director, and Geoff McQuilkin, its executive director, led the way to a burbling spring rimmed by innumerable hoof prints. Surrounding vegetation was nibbled to nubs. Wildlife compete for the limited water here. The bleached bones of a wild horse lie in vegetation near the shores of Mono Lake. “The birds that would have a safe haven in that spring or be hidden away from raptors and predators overhead don’t have that opportunity anymore,” McQuilkin said.The pair first remembered the horses showing up in remote areas around the lake in 2015, as the state was gripped by drought. By 2021, as they pushed west, they landed at South Tufa, where tourists congregate to gaze at the limestone columns. In the spring of 2023, horse carcasses emerged along the shores of South Tufa and nearby Navy Beach as the snow from a winter of biblical proportions melted.“The recent deaths of these horses provide further evidence that the size of this herd cannot be supported by the landscape which they are expanding onto,” Lisa Cox, a spokesperson for the Inyo National Forest, said at the time.“They’re medicine.” Rana Saulque, vice chairwoman of the Utu Utu Gwaitu Paiute tribe, walks near a natural spring in an area where wild horses gather near the community of Benton, Calif. On a pleasantly cool day in September, Rana Saulque stared transfixed at a group of roughly 50 wild horses in the River Spring Lakes Ecological Reserve, not far from her tribe’s reservation near the town of Benton. Saulque, vice chairwoman for the Utu Utu Gwaitu Paiute tribe, draws a parallel between ousting the horses and the historic persecution of her people by the government. “They’re going to run them down with helicopters and genocide them, just like they ran down us,” she said through tears. A striking cremello horse stood out from the rest — a beloved subject for photographers who sojourn here. A brown foal with a white stripe on its muzzle teetered on toothpick legs. Several babies hugged close to their moms.Mostly, the horses peacefully graze, but two rear up momentarily. “That’s horsing around,” Saulque said. Then they begin galloping and suddenly they look powerful and sleek. Epic, like a poster for a classic western film. Dozens of wild horses graze on the River Spring Lakes Ecological Reserve. “They’re so magical,” the vice chairwoman said. “They’re medicine for people.”Federal officials stress that they have precautions in place to ensure safety during helicopter roundups. That includes avoiding peak foaling periods and hot weather that would stress the horses.The Utu Utu Gwaitu Paiute are among a coalition that wants to pause the planned roundups for two years and ultimately secure land back to set aside a sanctuary for the horses to roam. As envisioned, local tribes would help manage the herd, including darting horses with a birth control vaccine to limit population growth. Horses could be put to work at pack stations, equine therapy and rodeo schools for kids, the group says.The proposal could also help revive horse culture that runs deep in the tribal communities, Saulque said. Jim Walker, her great-great-grandfather and a respected medicine man, rode mustangs all the way to Florida, visiting tribes along the way to exchange medicine and horses. Maya Jamal Kasberg, founder of nonprofit Made by Mother Earth, is part of the coalition that wants to scrap the current plan to round up Montgomery Pass horses. Kauk’s tribe historically rode the horses from Lee Vining into Yosemite to gather basket-making materials, among other activities. Mustangs were tapped for Native American rodeos and relay races, she added.According to the coalition that includes the nonprofit American Wild Horse Conservation, the feds and groups like the Mono Lake Committee have the science all wrong. The herbivores chomp down invasive cheatgrass that poses wildfire risk, and their poop — maligned by many — actually spreads native seeds, they say. Wild and free — for nowAt the heart of the emotional battle playing out in the Eastern Sierra is the Montgomery Pass wild horse herd. According to the U.S. Forest Service, its origin is unknown. But there’s speculation that it’s linked to mustang drives between the Owens Valley and Nevada.A 1971 law declared wild horses and burros “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West,” and made it illegal to harass, capture or kill them on public lands. But the Forest Service and BLM, which became responsible for managing them, can remove “excess animals” to preserve the health of the range.The way this often plays out is that horses are rounded up and offered for adoption or sale. Those that aren’t taken in by a private owner are shipped to pastures where they often live out their remaining days. A census last year found that there are now about 700 horses in the Montgomery Pass herd. Federal officials designated the Montgomery Pass Wild Horse Territory, a remote area spanning sagebrush steppe and pinyon pine forest east of Mono Lake. They say the land can sustainably support 138 to 230 horses. As of last year, nearly 700 were documented in an aerial survey, with most ranging outside the territory, according to the agencies. Now under a plan approved in March, up to 500 horses could be ousted, with the Forest Service leading the effort and BLM assisting.Both agencies declined requests for interviews for this story, citing pending litigation. In August, a documentary filmmaker, primary care physician and wildlife ecologist sued the government authorities overseeing the agencies, claiming the roundups will decimate the herd to the point where long-term survival is unlikely.“This case represents yet another attempt by the agencies to evade their statutory duties to protect, preserve and manage the herd,” the suit reads.The government has agreed not to round up horses before Oct. 20, according to court documents.When multiple uses collide Rancher Leslie Hunewill looks at calves and their moms at her family’s historic ranch in Bridgeport. Leslie Hunewill’s cattle ranching family sees quite a bit of “horse activity” on grazing lands in an area called the Mono Sand Flats, to the east and north of the lake. Since purchasing the right to use the public land, her outfit has been able to graze there for only about five weeks in the last two years — and not consecutively. The culprit? “A huge number of horses,” she said.“Our cattle have not been out there,” she said. “There’s nothing for them to eat.” Cows aren’t allowed on the roughly 50,000-acre expanse during the growing season. But the horses, facing no fences, go for what’s green and pushing up, she said.“It doesn’t make sense for us to overuse or overgraze the land when we need to come back to it,” she said. “So when we are doing our part to manage the portion of it that we can, which is, say, our use of the cattle on that land, that’s all well and good. But who is taking charge of the horses and saying, this is too heavy use?” The Hunewills, who have deep roots in the Eastern Sierra, operate a guest ranch in Bridgeport. The law directs agencies to manage horse populations to maintain a “thriving natural ecological balance.” BLM and the Forest Service have to consider mustangs alongside grazing, wildlife and what’s good for the land. Some say the agencies have kicked the can down the road on management of the Montgomery Pass herd.Hunewill’s family has deep roots in the Eastern Sierra. Her great-great-great-grandfather came to California in the 1860s as a gold miner. He struck it rich, and got into the lumber business. When that stopped paying out, he used his oxen to feed the town of Bodie. Her family is still in the beef business, with the meat generally staying on the West Coast.They employ quite a few mustangs at their guest ranch operation in the town of Bridgeport, including Jethro, a friendly brown fella with a splash of white on his forehead. They’re hardy horses, and can be enlisted as pack animals high up in the mountains. Some don’t need shoes because of their “great feet.” But their robustness means “everybody’s already got their mustang,” she said, stymieing the prospect of mass adoptions.Shifting dynamicsWild horse populations can increase as much as 20% a year. Montgomery Pass horses used to summer in the high country and were once kept in check by mountain lions that preyed on foals, according to John Turner, a professor at the University of Toledo College of Medicine, who studied the herd for decades.That changed around 2008 or 2009, when the horses began lingering at lower elevations, where the open country makes it difficult for lions to hunt.The herd’s population surged. Turner sees the government’s current system of rounding up horses and holding them as unsustainable. And costly.“The gathers are successful at that time, but the reproductive rate of the animals is greater than the capacity to remove them,” he said.

Animals
Business
Conservation

How to Protect Your Pets From Pollution

Wildfire smoke, lead paint and other environmental toxins are health hazards for animals, too.

Wildfire smoke, lead paint and other environmental toxins are health hazards for animals, too.

Animals
Health

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