IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Perez, S.E.A. | |
| Ecologia e conserva‡Æo da on‡a-pintada e da on‡a-parda no Parque Nacional Serra da Capivara, Piau¡ | |
| 2012 Full Book | |
The jaguar (_Panthera onca_) and the puma (_Puma concolor_) are the biggest carnivores in the Americas. Both species co-occur across the jaguar's distribution, responding differently to the restrictions imposed by the environment and humans. In Brazil, one of the Biomes where both species seemingly face the most intense human and environment pressures is the semiarid Caatinga. Altough being the only Brazilian exclusive Biome, the conservation of the Caatinga has received little attention, with Integral Conservation Units covering a scarce extension of its territory. The Serra da Capivara National Park, located in the northeast state of Piau¡, is one of the greatest Conservation Units in the Caatinga. Since 1994, the Park has been implementing a water management regime unique in Latin America, with their effects to the wildlife community still being unknown. The objective of this study was to evaluate the populations of jaguars and pumas in the Park and possible interactions between them. The Park was sampled in 2009 and 2010, using camera-traps, but for some analyses, data from a previous campaign in 2007 were used. Through an habitat suitability analysis (ENFA, _Ecological Niche Factor Analysis_), it was found that for jaguar and puma, distance to waterholes and altitude were the most important ecogeographic variables. With the use of non-spatial and spatially explicit capture-mark-recapture models for closed populations, it was found that the jaguar population was greater than of pumas. Capture-mark-recapture models for open populations, indicated that the apparent survival of the jaguar was greater than the observed for pumas. In both models the sex was used as a covariate, and differences were founded in the estimated parameters for each sex. The data gathered by camera-traps were used to infer the Minimal Home Range of the species, and it was registered that, in average, pumas had greatest Minimal Home Ranges than jaguars. Through the use of occupancy models, it was found that the detection probability of both cats was positively correlated with altitude, and that the probability of an area being occupied by the jaguar was higher the more distant from human settlements it was. The results point that the management applied at the Serra da Capivara National Park along time could have been more beneficial for the jaguar. |
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