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Incredible footage showing safety dogs stopping a panther from hunting sheep in the pitch black Patagonian mountains has been captured using heat sensitive camera and drones . It is the first time this behavior has ever been filmed .
The clip was film as part of " animal Up Close WithBertie Gregory , " a new National Geographic serial that take aim viewer to removed locating around the world look at creatures up close in their everyday life . In the episode " Patagonia Puma , " Gregory — a National Geographic Explorer — and his squad visit a distant , craggy region of Patagonia in southerly Chile . Their intention was to captivate the lives of pumas ( Puma concolor ) and the challenge they look — including their coexistence with farmers , who have historically killed pumas that track down their livestock .
Thermal cameras show the puma approaching the herd of sheep in the Patagonian mountains.
In the footage , take on a sheep farm in the middle of the dark , Gregory and cameramanSam Stewartuse caloric imaging tv camera and a drone to see into the darkness . At the top of a ridge , they blot a puma creeping down the mountainside directly at the sheep . " They have absolutely no idea that it ’s there , " Stewart pronounce while take the tantrum .
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The catamount hops the farm ’s fence with ease and is in with the sheep , quick for the kill , but the dogs sense something and start barking . The puma footprint away and jumps back over the fencing before retreating up the hill .
run pumas has been illegal in Chile since the early 1980s , but it is still sometimes practise in private state . Conservation projectsnow work with farmers to practice non - lethal mean of protect sheep , including fencing , tracking collars and specialized guard dog-iron , such as Maremma and Great Pyrenees Sheepdogs — knock-down stock with long , thick pelage suitable for living in the freezing Patagonian landscape .
The Nat Geo footage prove the dogs in action .
" If the farmer ’s root is to dart the pumas , that ’s not actually a good solution , " Gregory told Live Science . " If you shoot one of those pumas their territory very quickly gets lodge in by another puma from a neighboring firearm of dominion , so the problem continues . Not only are you kill panther … you ’re also not solve the problem . "
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Gregory said he met a different farmer who used to shoot catamount but realized it was n’t helping protect his flock . " He told me about this one farm where they used to kill 100 pumas per year … after the andiron were introduced to protect the flock from the painter , the granger lost just two sheep . " The granger now multiply a special type of sheep dog that protect sheep from predator , and gives them to other farm . Gregory ’s footage is the first fourth dimension this dog deterrent has been film work .
" I could n’t come up anywhere where anyone had in reality seen or filmed the interaction between the dogs and the pumas ” tell Gregory . " We shoot that interaction between the pumas [ and ] the dogs for the first prison term . "
" Animals Up Close With Bertie Gregory " is available to pour on Disney+ from Sept. 13 .
