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Wild Herbivores Banish "Traitors": Scientists
Some wild animals tend to "banish" members that show excessive intimacy with humans, according to zoologists with Qinhuangdao Safari Park in north China's Hebei Province.
Zhao Haipeng, zoologist with the park, said that wild animals normally have the instinct to alienate human beings and keep as far away from them as possible.
"If one of them show intimacy with human, they will regard it as a 'traitor' and isolate it," said Zhao.
"We found that some ponies and spotted deer in the park had been driven out by their groups for that reason and had to live alone since then."
He added that the "exiled" animals tend to relax their wariness toward humans.
Statistics of the park since 1995 show that the herbivores have the tendency to approach closer to tourists. The average distance that spotted deer keep from tourists dropped from 40 meters to 5 meters. The decrease is 30 to 3 meters for red deer and 50 to 10 meters for elk.
Qinhuangdao Safari Park, the largest of its kind in China, covers an area of 300 hectares, and has some 6,000 wild animals.
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