Once extinct in Switzerland, the ibex is back. Thousands of the surefooted creatures now live in the Swiss Alps.
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I have a wealth of experience as a journalist working in Switzerland and enjoy producing videos, articles and podcasts on a range of subjects, recently focused mainly on politics and the environment.
Born in the UK, I studied law at Nottingham University, then went on to attend the first-ever post-graduate radio journalism college in London. After working as a radio journalist in the UK and then Switzerland from 1984 to 1995, I returned to the UK to complete a post-graduate diploma in film at Bournemouth Film School. I have been working as a video journalist ever since.
Not content to mind her own business, Susan studied journalism in Boston so she’d have the perfect excuse to put herself in other people’s shoes and worlds. When not writing, she presents and produces podcasts and videos.
The Swiss loved their ibex to death – hunting them for their meat and horns, which people once believed had medicinal properties. Supposedly, horn powder could help conquer vertigo.
The last Swiss ibex was shot in canton Valais in 1809, but Italy still had loads of them thanks to the royal hunting supply. Later, Swiss officials asked whether they could buy some Italian ibex, but King Victor Emmanuel II wasn’t selling.
So in 1906, the Swiss authorities hired poachers to capture a number of Italian ibex kids and sneak them over the Swiss border. A successful breeding programme made it possible to start the Augstmatthorn colony in the Bernese Oberland. Later, Italian leader Benito Mussolini gave Switzerland additional animals.
So-called bottlenecks have been a challenge for Alpine ibex. These occur when a population becomes very small – causing a loss of genetic diversity, which can then have a negative impact on a population’s well-being.
“Most populations in the Alps are growing well, and there’s no immediate need to do anything about it. But some aren’t, so those are populations where one might consider releasing animals from a different genetic background,” says Lukas KellerExternal link, a professor at the University of Zurich’s Institute of Evolutionary Biology. He advises the Swiss government on the subject of ibex health.
In Switzerland more people are being referred to electrical therapies or psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Are there similar approaches where you live?
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This year marks the centenary of the reintroduction of the ibex into Switzerland after it was hunted into extinction at the beginning of the 19th century. “For me the ibex invokes wisdom, courage and tenacity. It has a slow, steady and majestic gait because it lives in difficult terrain all year round,” explained Paul Demierre,…
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The team of biologists I accompanied are a key link in a conservation chain ensuring that the ibex colonies spread across the Swiss Alps remain healthy – exactly 100 years after the animal’s re-introduction. There are about 14,000 ibex in Switzerland, and about 250 of them live in the wild on the high ridge running…
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