What do night breathing do? Much more than we thought…

If until today it was thought that ospreys usually hunt at a distance of about 500 meters from the nest, now it turns out that they hunt up to a distance of about nine kilometers from the nest

A new study reveals for the first time the hunting habits of the "natural exterminators" of the valleys - take a breath: if until now it was thought that they usually hunt at a distance of about 500 meters from the nest, now it turns out that they hunt up to a distance of about nine kilometers from the nest, crossing fields, passing between settlements and even cross the border. It's just that their ignoring the obstacles of humans has a price: among our neighbors, breathing is seen as a harbinger of imminent death, and therefore they are hunted there. "Our work so far has shown the great effectiveness of inhalations as natural exterminators of rodents and many farmers are already using them. The findings raise the need to improve the nesting system, so that we can derive the maximum benefit from the assistance provided by respiration", said Dr. Moti Charter from the University, the scientific center of the National Project for Research on Respiration.

Since the Jezreel Valley and the Beit Shean Valley are among the areas with the highest population density in the world - over 230 pairs per 100 square kilometers (in Europe, up to 50 pairs live per 100 square kilometers), a national project was established a few years ago with the support of several government ministries and the cooperation of the Society for the Protection Nature, and a number of universities, to preserve respiration and promote green agriculture. As part of it, nesting boxes were placed for breathing in agricultural fields so that they could hunt the rodents and thus allow the farmers to reduce the use of toxins that harm the environment as a whole.

However, because puffins are a nocturnal bird, very little was known until now about their hunting habits. Previous studies, which mainly used radio transmitters, found that their hunting area usually reaches up to about 500 meters from the nest. According to this information, farmers placed the boxes adjacent to their fields. But now, thanks to the attachment of GPS devices to 20 respirations, it became clear to Dr. Charter, who conducted the study in collaboration with the University of Lausanne and Tel Aviv University and with funding from the Adex and Orox Foundation from Switzerland, the Office for Regional Cooperation and the Dokift Fund of the Society for the Protection of Nature, Everything we knew about breathing is very far from reality: their hunting area reaches ranges of between 2-9 km and therefore they move between fields and even between settlements. The agricultural meaning is that a nesting box placed by a farmer in his field and even several boxes placed by a certain kibbutz may not be effective at all. This finding raises the need for the establishment of a regional system that includes a large amount of nesting boxes that cater to a large area. It was also found that the "night work" far from home affects the life of the witch: some of the nymphs often sleep far from the nesting box and far from their offspring. "In an area with such a dense nestling population, the meaning of roosting far from the offspring is that another mature nestling will sleep closer to the chicks than their parents. This is not behavior I would have expected to discover in this case," said Dr. Charter, who has already found surprising stories over the past few years in which birds have adopted orphaned chicks.

The GPS findings also revealed, of course, that ants are not really impressed by the boundaries of humans and cross the boundary in their search for food. But perhaps it would have been better if they had gone through passport control: it turns out that across the border they are exposed to two dangers. In the neighboring countries, breathing heralds the death of a close person, so many times, they try to kill them as soon as they are seen. However, no less important, in some areas beyond the border, poisons and dangerous pesticides are used, which threaten breathing life. "If we make sure not to use poisons in agriculture, however, beyond the green line and the border they will not behave in the same way and stop the hunter - then basically there is no point in what we are doing here. If we want to preserve the diversity of animals in our region, we must develop cross-border collaborations, which include both government bodies and non-profit organizations," Dr. Charter concluded.

Tags: dr