So, everyone knows that carabou, water buffalo and other land animals migrate. The question is why? Well, food is one reason. The carabou tend to strip the land bare as they move. I mean, when you have 1 million plus mouths to feed, you need to keep moving just to find all the food for everyone.

Another reason because a lot of those migratory animals have predators that hunt them. And, if they were to stay in one spot, it wouldn’t take long for the heard to dwindle. If a heard is unable to move, it tends to cause what is called “over-predation.” When a predator attacks, they go into trance of sorts where they can actually keep killing if pray items are in the area, even more than they’ll ever eat. This is what happened to cattle ranchers in America. Settlers came to this new land and didn’t think to study the predators before they built their tiny ranches. They came in, and put a large number of cattle in a small space and prevented them from moving very far. And, when the wolves came around, they had a free buffet.

Naturally, grazing animals migrate to prevent this over-predation. Some predators will follow the herds. Wolves are known to do this, but they only follow them to the edge of their territories. But, a wolf pack’s territory can extend up to 600 square miles.  But, even with such a large range, a single pack might only take maybe a dozen animals out of the million or two in the herd. If they heard didn’t migrate, a wolf pack could easily kill a couple hundred…maybe even a few thousand individuals, but only eat maybe two in a month.

Over-predation can apply to sea-life as well. Sometimes, when fishermen cast their nets, sea otters and sea lions will kill a lot of the fish, even after they’ve eaten their fill. Naturally, over-predation is EXTREMELY rare. It only spikes with human intervention. However, even with humans helping it out, over-predation is still pretty rare.

Advertisement