Aboriginal fire hunting leads to more lizards
Posted by staff / November 4, 2013 monitor lizardsNyalanka TaylorRebecca Bird
Above, Nyalanka Taylor prepares her harvest of monitor lizards for cooking.
Populations of monitor lizards—a staple of the Aboriginal diet—nearly double in areas where they are heavily hunted. The hunting method—using fire to clear patches of land to improve the search for game—also creates a mosaic of regrowth that enhances habitat.
Where there are no hunters, lightning fires spread over vast distances, landscapes are more homogenous and monitor lizards are more rare.
“Our results show that humans can have positive impacts on other species without the need for policies of conservation and resource management,” says Rebecca Bird, associate professor of anthropology at Stanford University.
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credit: Rebecca Bliege Bird
[…] Above, Nyalanka Taylor prepares her harvest of monitor lizards for cooking. Populations of monitor lizards—a staple of the Aboriginal diet—nearly double in areas where they are heavily hunted. […]
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