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CCSS: 7.SP.C.6
TEKS: 7.6D
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Look Out for Lions!
Bobby-Jo Photography/University of New South Wales (left); Ben Yexley/University of New South Wales (right)
Farmers in Botswana use a stamp to apply images of eyes to a cow’s behind.
You aren’t seeing things—these cows have eyes on their behinds! Cattle herders in Botswana, a country in southern Africa, had a problem: Large predators, like lions, kept attacking their livestock. But they didn’t want to kill these predators, as many of them are vulnerable species. So Neil Jordan, a conservation biologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, came up with the “Eye-Cow” technique. The eyes painted on the cattle trick predators into thinking they’ve been spotted, similar to how butterflies with eye patterns on their wings ward off birds that would try to eat them.
Researchers tracked a total of 2,061 cows. Of the 683 that had eyes painted on their behinds, none were killed by predators. But 19 of the unpainted cows were. What percent of unpainted cows were killed by predators, rounded to the nearest hundredth? Record your work and answer on our Numbers in the News answer sheet.