Where Animals Rule

One of the very, very few positives to come out of the pandemic was the breathing space it afforded Mother Nature to replenish, with pollution levels dropping dramatically during lockdowns and animals returning to spaces they had long since deserted or were too afraid to venture to because of the presence of human beings.

Among the most striking images were of sealions on streets south of Buenos Aires, jackals howling in Tel Aviv, and deer grazing on lawns outside apartment blocks in London. Bottlenose dolphins replaced the oil takers, cruise liners and cargo ships of the usually busy shipping lanes off Istanbul, cougars patrolled the alleyways of Santiago, and a 30-strong herd of dugongs—those timid ‘sea cows’—were filmed frolicking in the tourist-free waters of Thailand’s Hat Chao Mai National Park.

In recent times, there have also been numerous successful (though not always popular with the locals) reintroductions of previously extinct wild animals to backcountries around the globe. Notable examples include the gorgeous Eurasian Lynx, extinct in Central Europe since the 1800s; the grey wolf, reintroduced to Yellowstone Park after 70 years; and beavers being returned the British countryside after a 400-year absence. Another remarkable reintroduction project is due to begin in the UK’s Canterbury countryside in 2022 with the release of the European bison—the continent’s greatest beast—not seen in the wild since the first world war, and a close relative of the Steppe bison, extinct for 10,000 years.

But there are still some places on Earth, where creatures, great and small, still truly rule. 

Ilha da Queimada Grande

Brazil

Commonly called ‘the stuff of nightmares’, Ilha da Queimada Grande, or ‘Snake Island’, is so dangerous that aside from the occasional courageous (or crazy?) researcher, humans are forbidden from stepping foot on it—because likely you’ll step on a slithery reptile. It’s estimated that there are up to five golden lancehead snakes per three-square metres on the forested monolith, around 150km from the coastline of São Paulo. The snake is a type of pit viper whose venom is so deadly that is melts human flesh in an instant—but it’s also shown potential in helping treat heart disease and blood clots. Legend has it that the half-metre creatures were placed on the island by pirates to protect their treasure, but they likely evolved from the jararaca snake when the island was cut off from the mainland around 11,000 years ago.

Tashiro Island

Japan

When the much-loved theatre show Cats was made into a movie in 2019, it was met with widespread ridicule. The musical did, however, inspire one of the greatest ever lines from a movie critic (Edward Douglas, The Beat) that it was “the worst thing to happen to cats since dogs”. Little wonder then, that canines are forbidden from entering Tashiro Island in the Land of the Rising Sun. Commonly called ‘Cat Island’ for obvious reasons, the tiny rural landmass is positioned off the city of Ishinomaki in the Miyagi Prefecture. The thousands of felines, which outnumber the human population by four-to-one, were first brought over as pest control for the island’s silkworm farms, but they’re now quite the tourist attraction on the fishing island (which no doubt keeps them purring, too). 

Christmas Island

 Australia

By far the most famous—and numerous—of the 14 species of land crabs on Christmas Island, the Christmas Island red crab population is thought to hover around 50 million, and their migration is one of the most spectacular—and vibrant—phenomena in the natural world. At the first rainfall of the wet season (usually around November), the colourful crustaceans emerge from the island’s shady forests, turning roads, rocks, waterways and beaches into a carpet of majestic red—up to 100 crabs per square kilometre—as they make their way to the oceanside to mate and spawn, the most popular time for visitors to make their way to the island.

Ōkunoshima

Japan

This Japanese island is widely referred to as Usagi Jima, which translates as ‘Rabbit Island’ owing to the hundreds of bunnies that inhabit it. The island, around 3km from Takehara city in the Hiroshima Prefecture, may now have a cute name and even cuter population, but they belie its rather disturbing past as a second world war military base that manufactured masses of poisonous gas used to kill tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians. Now another popular tourist spot, it’s thought that the creatures were released by school kids in the 1970s, where, with no predators they multiplied like, well, rabbits.

Knepp Estate

UK

A bit of curveball, this 1,416-hectare slice of English countryside has made headlines for its pioneering approach to its farming practices. Once a traditionally-managed, orderly collection of manicured meadows, its owners have essentially given the estate back to nature, something known as ‘rewilding’. The tangle of trees and vegetation feed and shelter an array of animals, whose dung and fur help spread seeds and serve as an essential link in this bucolic circle of life. Rare birds such as peregrine falcons and turtle doves patrol skies above the fenceless paradise that’s home to all five of the country’s owl species, 13 of the 18 types of British bat, and the elusive purple emperor butterfly.