Very Animals. Mysterious Animals in the Rainforest

Author: Beijing Continental Bridge Culture Media / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: The "Legend" series of books is rooted in the classic "Legend" documentaries, selecting novel and unique perspectives. With popular and fluent text, abundant materials, and exquisite images, they freeze moments in history. Striving to retain the thrilling visual impact of the original footage while conveying broader knowledge and profound culture, the "Legend" series has presented itself to the readers with a fresh new style after four years of accumulation. Shanghai Science and Technology Literature Press has fully cooperated with Beijing Continental Bridge Culture Media to launch the "Extraordinary Animals" series of books. The images in this series are meticulously crafted, and the text is rich and delicate. It is believed that readers will embark on a spiritual journey of legends by reading this series. This book is one of the "Extraordinary Animals" series of books, where you can see rare extraordinary animals and extraordinary lives in the animal world. Here, you will find mysterious animals in the rainforest, lowland gorillas, bald eagles, and more. The "Legend" series of books is rooted in the classic "Legend" documentaries, selecting novel and unique perspectives, with popular and fluent text, abundant materials, and exquisite images to freeze moments in history, striving to retain the thrilling visual impact of the original footage while conveying broader knowledge and profound culture. The significance of the "Legend" series of books is not just to please for a moment, but to benefit for a lifetime! Whenever the rainy season comes, they will roam around, and the scene is very spectacular. Once you enter this wetland swamp, you will see crocodiles lying motionless on the roadside along the way. Next to the lakes and ponds, countless crocodiles of various shapes will lie side by side, as if welcoming distant guests in a formation. In today's Rio Negro, it is rare to see caimans, as they have become very cautious and fearful of humans. In recent years, human hunting has led to the of countless caimans, and the demand for crocodile leather in the international market has caused a sharp decline in their population. Although caimans have suffered at the hands of humans, the vast northern Pantanal region remains a safe haven for them. However, in many rivers and lakes inland, the population of caimans has declined very rapidly. According to the latest estimates, about 1 million caimans are hunted and skinned in the Pantanal region each year. Finding caimans is not difficult. At night, if you light a torch and come to the water's edge, it is easy to see them because their eyes reflect the light. This ancient species, which dates back 190 million years and shares the same ancestor as dinosaurs, is also facing its fate today. Caimans have made great contributions to the ecological environment because their main food is dead fish or injured fish. At night, poachers shoot caimans from small boats and skin them on the spot. In recent years, this illegal trade has changed somewhat, with caiman leather being used to exchange for cocaine produced in Bolivia. Although the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has strictly banned the hunting of caimans, caiman leather is still frequently found in local shipments. When it comes to crocodile leather, only 15% of a caiman's skin can be used. In the Pantanal, poachers only take the softer, smoother side skin and neck skin, discarding the rest, which they cruelly call "shaving the hide." After a caiman is dried, the usable brown leather weighs only 200 grams. Unfortunately, despite the perfect camouflage that has withstood the test of wind and rain for hundreds of millions of years, caimans have ultimately failed in the face of humans. Driven by commercial interests, caimans have been drastically reduced in number, endangering the ecological balance of the Pantanal. P23