IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Bertrand, A.S. | |
| Lessons for Applied Cat Conservation in Brazil: Intergrating science to a community-based approach | |
| 2009 Feline Conservation Federation (53): 31-32 | |
The Puma Project keeps expanding and brings concrete results. After 160 kilometers in the bush doing spoor surveys, guess what we have found? We have found that the most common animal in the Igua‡u National Park is... the human being! It is amazing to see this huge forest remnant (2,000 km2), the last and largest remnant of Atlantic forest from southern Brazil to be under federal protection, this World Natural Heritage Site, being totally overrun by poachers, palm-tree extractors, and fishermen? Do the math and measure the seriousness of the case: we registered 249 infractions such as hunting trails, hunting camps, salt licks, miradors (a type of hunting blind), and hunting hounds. I could also tell you this represents 2.5 infractions per walked mile or 8.8 infractions per daily expedition. Interestingly, the top two most common mammals that we have found using trails and muddy roads were gourmet meals for pumas: red brocket deer (his favorite, Fig. 1; n = 121) and agouti (never says no; n = 119). Tapirs came next (n = 114). Pumas would feed on a tapir baby if it gets the chance, but tapirs remain the jaguar prey par excellence. The excessive abundance of tapirs reflects the absence of jaguars in the park. Indeed, while we found 87 records of pumas (most of which were scrapes on the ground), we only found two records of jaguars. We also recorded 36 little spotted cats, 22 ocelots, and two jaguarundis. Hunting dogs (n = 58) were more common than any of those felids |
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