Stand-in animals boost nature

Ecologists (experts in the relationship between animals, plants and the environment) have introduced hundreds of new residents into Purbeck Heaths Nature Reserve in Dorset, England. They are there to restore the landscape and boost biodiversity (the variety of plant and animal life in a place). Red Devon cattle, wild Exmoor ponies and curly-haired Mangalitsa pigs will help to recreate a savannah – a grassy plain with few trees. The animals’ grazing habits encourage other wildlife, including rare species like heath bee-flies. The animals will take on the role of other creatures that could have roamed ancient Purbeck. The cows replace aurochs, a huge extinct species that is related to modern cattle; the ponies stand in for extinct wild horses called tarpans; and the pigs will do the same job as…

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The Week Junior (UK) (Digital) - 1 Issue, 392

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