Nature Is Red in Tooth and Claw

When the British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described nature as “red in tooth and claw,” he was reminding us that the natural world can be cruel as well as beautiful, and that the wild animals that we love are in a constant struggle for 【小题1】. In simple terms, for wild animals, it is “eat or be eaten,” and they make no distinction between humans and other animals.

Most urban residents rarely 【小题2】 wild animals in their natural surroundings. The ones that they do get to observe in person are bred in captivity, which usually means these animals appear rather tame. In Canada, where I come from, we have a more realistic attitude towards wild animals: We try to stay away from them. One day, I was walking along a nature trail near my home and a coyote (郊狼) came out of the woods and 【小题3】 at me. A coyote is a dog-like animal, which is a little bigger than a fox, but smaller than a wolf. They usually avoid humans, but the occasional attacks can be 【小题4】. Every year, one or two people end up getting killed by coyotes. The yellow-furred, sharp-toothed coyote, 【小题5】, was not a hungry one. It turned around and disappeared back into the forest.

This little incident served as a reminder that, in Canada at least, a walk in the woods is not the same as one in the park. It can also serve as one for all humans that as our populations grow, expanding into the natural 【小题6】 of wild animals can be dangerous for both humans and the animals.

Earlier this year, China became shocked by a herd of elephants in Yunnan that had left their home in the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve and went on a winding journey through the province. They destroyed crops and buildings along the way. Villages in their path were empty because of the 【小题7】 dangers they posed to villagers. However, instead of killing these “troublemakers,” the government sent thousands of troops to 【小题8】 the animals and to guide them back home.

Animal experts have yet to determine why the elephants went on their journey. A reasonable possibility is that thanks to effective environmental 【小题9】 in recent years, the herd in the reserve had grown increasingly larger, and they probably simply needed more room and more food in order to survive. Regardless, the series of the wandering Yunnan elephants has served as a reminder that it is our 【小题10】 to protect wild animals, both for their sake and for ours.

Their lives—red in tooth and claw—are difficult enough as it is without us causing them any more problems than they already have.

The Rebirth of an Ancient Craft: Eagle Hunting

When school is done on Fridays, Zamanbol, a 14-year-old eagle huntress, heads back home, finishes her homework and does her chores as 【小题1】teenagers do anywhere. On Saturdays, she saddles up her horse, treks (艰苦跋涉) deep into snow-capped mountains and 【小题2】wild beasts with a trusted partner: her trained bird of prey. She is part of a generation of nomadic (游牧的) youth who are embracing customs centuries old as they seek connection with their roots and the wild in a world being 【小题3】by technology.

Just as Zamanbol began learning the craft at a young age, the training of the birds starts soon after an eaglet is 【小题4】from the nest, often after a hunter has made a rugged (崎岖的) climb up a cliff. The resulting relationship between hunter and eagle is 【小题5】and spans years; some last more than a decade, with a few hunters even talking about the eagle as if it were their child.

Female eagles, larger and stronger than males, are used almost exclusively in the hunt. Once grown to about 15 pounds, the eagles ride with their hunters on horseback into the mountains, where they are 【小题6】to scan the landscape for prey, typically foxes and rabbits. But wolves are the true prize, even if the hunters fear for their birds’ 【小题7】when they go in for the dangerous, and brutal (野蛮的) kill.

Eagle hunting almost vanished in the last century. It was kept 【小题8】by the Altai Kazakhs in western Mongolia in Bayan-Olgii Province, where at least 400 ethnic Kazakhs have formally registered as eagle hunters.

Now, for perhaps the first time in its history, the art, and its essential role in Altai Kazakh culture, is being 【小题9】with outsiders. Hunters come together for the Golden Eagle Festival, held around early October, to compete with each other in a two-day gathering open to tourists.

A popular 2016 documentary film about Aisholpan, a young eagle huntress who won the festival’s hunting 【小题10】in 2014, helped bring the Altai Kazakh culture to international attention.

American authorities arrested Masphal Kry, an official in Cambodia’s forestry administration, last November when he was heading to an international meeting about trade regulations for endangered species in Panama. Prosecutors accused him of conspiring with a smuggling ring. The contraband (违禁品): monkeys, 【小题1】 long-tailed macaques. His 【小题2】 allegedly grabbed wild macaques in Cambodia’s national parks and bribed officials to label them as captive-bred. Fake papers allowed Vanny Bio Research, a Cambodian pharma company, to ship these unfortunate primates (灵长类动物) to America for use in research. Mr Kry is facing trial in Florida’s Southern District Court. The federal government funds seven National Primate Research Centres (NPRCs), which 【小题3】 in total around 20,000 primates, not only macaques but also baboons and marmosets. These centres then 【小题4】 primates to labs across America. NPRCs have fulfilled only a third of requests for untested-on macaques in 2021 and prices have soared. Before the covid-19 pandemic a rhesus macaque cost $8,000; by 2022 they had 【小题5】 $24,000. Another species, long-tail macaques, is probably per pound currently the most expensive 【小题6】 wildlife, says Lisa Jones-Engel, a science adviser at PETA, an animal-rights group.

Getting lab monkeys from abroad became harder during the pandemic. Chinese authorities banned the export of all primates in early 2020. The Chinese government wanted to 【小题7】 the country’s wildlife trade, which is thought to encourage the 【小题8】 of pathogens—like sars-cov-2—from animals to humans.

That forced American companies to rely on less 【小题9】 South-East Asian suppliers. Many scientists believe poaching is prevalent across Cambodia. In February, the Department of Justice subpoenaed Charles River over 1,000 juvenile macaques the pharmaceutical company had bought from Cambodia; the DoJ suspected they were 【小题10】 in the wild then exported. These primates are now in Texas and Maryland but also in dilemma: they cannot be tested on, nor can they be flown back to Cambodia.