Neil Jordan, a conservation biologist, has come up with a novel method for protecting cattle from African lions: paint eyes on their behinds. The lions will think their intended prey (猎物) has seen them and will give up, since they've lost the element of surprise.

This psychological trickery has been called "iCow", which is actually not as strange as it sounds. The eye-like patterns on butterfly wings are known to prevent preying birds and woodcutters in Indian forests wear masks on the backs of their heads when working to discourage hungry tigers.

The inspiration for the iCow strategy came while Jordan was based in a village in Botswana, when two lionesses were killed by local farmers to revenge their cattle's death. The African lion is a vulnerable species,with numbers dropping from over 100,000 in the 1990s to about 30,000 today. Much of that decline is due to these kinds of revengeful killings because farmers have no effective strategies for protecting their herds.

"Lions are hunters that like to attack by surprise. They move slowly, quietly, and carefully to their prey, get close, and jump on them unseen," he said. When Jordan was watching a lion follow an antelope one day, he noticed the lion gave up the hunt once the antelope spotted it.

So he joined one of the local farmers on a 10-week trial study, painting eyes on one-third of a herd of 62 cattle. When the cattle returned each night, they took a head count to see how many had survived. Only three cows were killed by lions during this period-all without the painted eyes on their behinds. And all the painted cows survived. However, Jordan warned that so far this is just a promising idea. He is now back in Botswana for a more ambitious study,equipped with GPS devices to better monitor the movement of predators (捕食者) and prey.

As a teenager, Gray would collect mushrooms (蘑菇) with her family in Cape Town, South Africa, and after moving to the coast 14 years ago, she fully accepted wild foraging ( 搜 寻 食 物). Gray started experimenting with wild flavors, adding edible flowers and herbs to iced teas and cakes.

She became a personal wild food cook, foraging daily for ingredients down the coast in the summer. “I believe that food that is picked as fresh as possible and as close to your location as possible is the best for you,” Gray says, “and wild foods meet all those requirements.”

Wild foods are considered to be anything not planted by humans. They’re sourced depending on the season. There is no shortage of options in the Cape Floral Region — recognized by UNESCO as one of the most special places on Earth for plant biodiversity. More than 9,000 plant species grow in this region.

“Foraging here supplied the main food for the Khoikhoi people, one of the oldest people on Earth,” according to Mark Heistein, CEO of Cape Winelands Biosphere Reserve. Hundreds of these ingredients are also believed to have medicinal qualities, says Heistein, “like rooibos tea, considered a health tea, which is exported worldwide.”

Since 2017, Gray has been sharing her love of the edible landscape with locals and tourists through seasonal workshops around 10 kilometers south of Cape Town. She has taught thousands of people how to forage.

When COVID-19 hit South Africa and the country entered lockdown, Gray was unable to run her group workshops in person, but she continued to find a growing fanbase online. She has run 10 online workshops for groups during lockdown.

“It’s very ironic (讽刺的) to be able to create this connection for people to nature through a screen,” Gray says. “The true foragers are not on any social media platforms — they’re the ones who are doing the work in the mountains and out in the wild.”

Please do not feed native animals

The native animals in this park have enough natural food to survive.

You might think that you are being kind to the native birds and animals by giving them your food, but feeding them or leaving rubbish around that they might eat is cruel, not kind!

Feeding animals can make them sick because sometimes our food contains something that native animals cannot easily digest. They can become weak and more likely to catch a disease.

When the animals become accustomed to being fed by people or finding food in rubbish, they can easily lose the ability to hunt and find food for themselves when they need to.

Animals that rely on being fed by humans may become aggressive. They gather near areas of high human activity such as campsites and walking tracks. Animals have been known to fight over food and bother people in the area.

Feeding animals can encourage them to look for food in residential areas or nearby farms, which is dangerous for both the animals and residents.

Please be a friend to our native birds and animals.

Take your remaining food and rubbish with you.

Feeding animals is an offence under By-law 457 and can result in a＄250 fine.