Study confirms that painting eyes on cow butts helps ward off predators

Emotional, Burning, Unlimited Tuned Laboratory

There’s no silver bullet, but “eye-cow” technique is one available tool for farmers.

Cattle herds in the Okavango delta region in Botswana are plagued by attacks by lions and other predators, prompting farmers to retaliate by killing the predators. An alternative nonlethal technique involves painting eyes on the butts of cattle to trick ambush predators like lions into thinking they’ve been spotted by their intended prey. It’s called the “Eye-Cow Project,” and a recent paper published in the journal Communications Biology provides some solid empirical evidence for the practice. There are now practical guides for using the “eye-cow” technique available in both English and Setswana, so farmers can try it out for themselves…