Gordon Buchanan spends his professional life in the company of animals that would terrify any normal person. The famous Scottish wildlife presenter and filmmaker travels the globe documenting the lives of native tribesmen, and how they are able to coexist with fierce predators. The latest series of Tribes, Predators, and Me saw him living with hyenas in Ethiopia and even swimming with sharks in the Pacific. His show offers an authentic insight into the world of remote tribespeople who live vastly different lives to our own. A focal point is how each tribe manages the dangerous local wildlife, with many having to deal with living extremely close to potentially lethal animals. One of Buchanan’s most renowned visits was to the Waorani tribe, an Amazonian people numbering around 2,000 and located in Ecuador.
A huge part of Waorani culture is capturing anacondas that reside in the local rivers. However, it’s hugely important to the tribe not to harm the animals, and they are always released back into the wild. The Ecuadorian tribe believes that capturing these mighty predators is a demonstration of extreme strength and bravery. It is also seen as a means of acquiring spiritual power from the huge beasts. Over the centuries, they have evolved into specialist hunters, able to capture even the biggest and most powerful wild snakes. During his stay, on the first-ever aired episode of the show, Buchanan helped the locals wrestle control of one of the largest anacondas ever documented. In fact, the serpent measured more than 17ft and weighed around 150 pounds, making it the biggest ever discovered! Recently, the Waorani tradition of snake catching has been hugely important for the local ecosystem. The tribe has begun collecting samples from their catches to be analyzed by scientists. This is to see whether oil exploration is polluting native water supplies and damaging the wildlife upon which the Waorani rely.
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Once believed to be extinct, because it is so rarely found, the New Guinea Highland Wild dog is closely related to the dingo, which is found predominantly in Australia. The New Guinea Highland Wild Dog is named because of where it originated, in the South Pacific Islands. For many decades, no human had reported seeing one, which is why many believed they had died out. In exciting news for scientists and the animal kingdom, scientists revealed in 2017 that they had found a litter of New Guinea puppies in Papua, and they released photos of the cute dogs. The photos show them running in the wild, living in their natural habitat. It’s also wonderful to discover that a species we thought was extinct is still living.
These dogs seem to thrive away from human contact, even though they were previously kept and raised by whole villages. They have a haunting wail that is very distinctive and they are usually tan-colored, short hair dogs. Their size is around the same size as a border collie. Scientists managed to briefly trap some of the animals to get blood and fecal matter from them, determining that they were, in fact, New Guinea Highland Wild dogs. They are slightly related to Asian species of dog, Akita, chow chow, and Shiba Inu. Evidence of the New Guinea Highland Wild Dogs can be traced back around 3,500 years, so their lineage is important. Conservation has been set up to keep them breeding, and as many as 200 - 300 of these animals are in zoos around the world. Hopefully, the efforts of zoologists and conservationists will pay off, so that the planet doesn’t lose another species. Then the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog can run through the hills as much as it pleases.