Jaguar Detectives

Category: Day by day | Date: Mar 31 2008 | By: admin

Dear friends,

And the photos analyses still revealing nice surprises! Here I want to make a “public” acknowledgement to Mathias Tobler from Botanical Research Institute of Texas. He create a database to organize and prepare the photos from camera traps to statistical analyses. Thank you Mathias!

We started now to identify ocelot pictures. I am a little worried because in this sample there are just a few ocelots records. Think could fix the camera lowest – closest to the ground, on the ocelots eye level. The cameras in Seis R was fixed in this way. Let’s see…

We get a beautiful picture of a tapir with a pub, as you can see the youngest had stripes that they lose when grow up.

On the latest post I put a picture of a melanic cub, think it deserves a little explanation. Melanic is the inverse of albinism, the animal born black and will be black for the rest of his life. It is quite common in jaguar small populations and there are a few studies on this issue. When the Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied came to Brazil and collected samples from 1815 to 1817 he describes the jaguar and the black one as two different species and later he perceives that was the same. Indeed, in our field work sometimes we can see that to the local people is difficulty to the believe this! When we say that the black jaguar in son of a spotted jaguar they give to us just a look that say silently:

- Are you trying to make fun with me?

Adult melanic jaguar on Pará photo taked from our team at Amazonian Forest in Pará. It is possible to see spots and rosets.

And finally the ocelot cat! Can you tell if they are the same individual?

Cheers

8 responses so far

Category: Day by day | Date: Mar 28 2008 | By: admin

Today, first of all I want you to apologize me about my english… You know, it is not my first language and I am afraid that something can sounds weird! Thank you all for the patience, think it can improve with pratice!

Well, our two days meeting was really productive and busy! New challenges, good news and old friends! But the show must go on…

After a while in rural zones working on Pontal do Paranapanema where I live now is time to attend the last classes to my Master’s Degree in Vertebrate Zoology in Belo Horizonte, capitol of Minas Gerais State. On Wednesday by morning I get a ride to São Paulo to get a bus to Belo Horizonte. It’s really weird to see São Paulo from distance: the sky is grey… the pollution makes the air so dense that you can see a grey cloud involving the town. Kind of Mad Max apocalyptical view… São Paulo is to Brazil what New York is to United States, with many more factories and cars. However, I get the first bus I could to Belo Horizonte. I choose to travel by day to see the mountains of Minas Gerais (those who had Google Earth in the computer can see the places!). am originally from there, from a small town in the mountains. Unfortunately the unique mountain in Pontal is the Morro do Diabo. To a native from Minas Gerais it is just a small hill, lowest than the one that I use to go every day to go to school. After 8 hours of travel and a little rest, I went to the university to see my advisor who receives me with:

- Oh, are you alive?

I told him the news and update him on the project activities. Time to work with data. Don’t tell to anybody but… I like statistics!!! Yes, I am a kind of nerd… Well, you will soon agree that this is not usual statistics.

Setting cameras in the field are just the beginning. When checking the cameras we change batteries and films if necessary. At final of the process get a great volume of films to process. But it is not just a kind of baseball cards collection, each photo needs to by catalogued, identified, checked and digitalized. The digital one goes to a data base where each photo is associated with the correspondent pair, catalogued, double check to see if everything is in the correct sequence, identified…so, think you get the point! It’s easy, but the point is the volume! We are talking about hundreds of pictures… This is what I will work on these days. My friends, I already have lots of news to share with you, I just don’t know how to starts. I am mounting a puzzle identifying the photos and I get our first unambiguous jaguar identification on the fragments survey, with photos from both sides. It’s a female with a melanic cub!!! There are 3 ocelot pictures, 4 of jaguars and 10 of pumas!!! And there are many more to be processed! We use codes to identification, but also names, wich is easer to remenber. So, I proposed a election for a nice name for our first jaguar on the fragments! Keep watching, we will need help on identification also!

Cheers!

Our first jaguar identified on the fragments survey! Wich will be her name?

The cub!!! Yeah, but the ocelots desappear from these areas…

Hey! Don’t rub the camera!

12 responses so far

Category: Day by day | Date: Mar 28 2008 | By: admin

After a little rest on Good Friday I was trying to figure out what was happening with one of the Camera Traps. We were fixing it on Thursday by afternoon and it gets a shoot without any movement in front of it. As in previous surveys some film rolls gets photos each 5 minutes (the interval we fix between one photo and another) we wait few minutes to see if it was the case. Yes, a new shoot after five minutes… Here go again, as Theresa said so well on Murphy`s Law:

- If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

The camera was discharging the photographic film taking nice photos of… nothing! It’s a great problem and if we don’t pay attention the camera finish a complete roll in a few hours. It is not easy to this electronic equipment resist to the humidity, tropical sunshine that changes quickly in amazing storms and turn to sunshine again. Even the stones break. So, I could not figure out what was wrong with the camera: at home it works properly. How to understand it?

Patience and carefull with the equipment is essential… 

Me and my Jedi Knights Cicinho and Wilson finish to setup more three camera stations on Seis R. Mission Complete! The last one station was special! We found an ocelot trail along an old road and the exact point were they (we do believe there was a couple) leave the road and goes inside the forest. A good signal! I can’t wait to see what we will get in that station. A nice sunset and back home to prepare my stuff to travel to Nazaré Paulista (800 Km from Pontal), the IPÊ head quarter to our general  meeting that happens each three months with all IPÊ’s researchers. Easter on road!

Cheers!

10 responses so far

Category: Day by day | Date: Mar 25 2008 | By: admin

Well, at least I can talk on our day by day. I truly acknowledge your patience, but do believe that was necessary to introduce the project concept in a “formal” before everything. Right now I am writing from the IPÊ’s head quarter were we are in our meeting that occurs each three months. Before came I was starting to worried about my ocelot survey in Pontal. For three weeks I was trying to fix the camera traps (cameras with movement sensors to photograph animals) in a new forest fragment. Unfortunately the Murphy’s Law is really strong and something weird starts to happen every time I prepared the equipment, called the field assistant, called the owner of the farm were is the forest and opened my mouth to say:

- Yes! I am going to field tomorrow!

Everything read? OK! Right. The weather then changed so fast and starts to rain amazing tropical storms… Field work cancelled… After a few days, another project needed the car, a VW-T2 that we share to field activities. As soon as they get the car, the grey weather clean up and became a beautiful blue sky… One can think in bad luck, fortunately I am not superstitious and prefer call it “chance”! Few days later, everything read, I get the car again… water falls from heaven… other project car turn… blue sky again… chance?

At this point you may be wondering:

- Why don’t you go to the field anyway?

Well, when I call to the farm I use to ask how about the road and the answer is:

- If you come you don’t will arrive. If you arrive you will not come back home.

Another issue is that our VW-T2 makes the one that appear in the movie “Little Miss Sunshine” a very nice car!

“Little Miss Sunshine” in action!

Finally on last Thursday we did it!!!

Me and my field assistants Cicinho and Wilson – actually they are more than it, they are my great friends – fixed three camera stations on the Seis R forest fragment, half of our original goal of six stations.

Cicinho in a relaxing moment after lunch

Wilson wondering the best way to fix the camera

Each station is composed by one pair of cameras, one in front another to get photos from both sides of the cats that can be identified then by their unique spot pattern.

Double check in the camera sensors

We spend great part of the time trying to find nice places - “hotspots” were the animals use frequently leaving tracks - to fix the cameras and opening trails.

Puma footprints on the road: follow the tracks to a nice place to fix cameras!

We came back home 10:00 pm. Cicinho and Wilson asked me to finish on Saturday, because they wanted to stay with their families on the “Good Friday” holiday. OK! I was so exhausted! A little rest would be nice. Think I should start jogging again!

Cheers

17 responses so far

Category: Introduction, Meet the Team | Date: Mar 25 2008 | By: admin

My name is Fernando Lima. I am a biologist and actually doing my Master graduate with my childhood dream: to work with wild cats. I am evaluating ocelot’s demography, home range and movement patterns through forest patches in the fragmented landscape of Pontal do Paranapanema region. I am working in the “Landscape Detectives” project since 2003 and I hope to increase the knowledge on this and other cats in Pontal and Upper Parana region to support Atlantic Forest conservation through corridor reforestation. I really like to read books written by naturalists that came to Brazil in the XIX century and their diaries. My hope here is that you enjoy this blog on our efforts to promote these fascinating animals conservation as I enjoy reading these earlier adventurers reports. Became part of our team! Welcome on board!

Me and my very first jaguar capture in 2004: the female “Livia”.

11 responses so far

Category: Introduction, Meet the Team | Date: Mar 25 2008 | By: admin

I am Laury Cullen, scientific research coordinator and conservation biologist with IPÊ. I obtained my Masters in Conservation Biology at the University of Florida, Gainsville and my Ph.D. at the University of Kent, UK. I had focused my research on the ecology of large mammals, applying conservation biology principles to the restoration of fragmented landscapes and community work. I have published over 40 papers and have received international recognition through the 2006 Rolex Award for Enterprise and the 2002 Whitley Gold Award. I am also a Fellow of the ASHOKA Foundation for social entrepreneurs. I have worked in the area for over a decade and have developed a very positive relationship with local people and landowners, as well as with local government for good policies in biodiversity conservation in Brazil.

Laury and the female jaguar “Tina” captured for radio tagging.

2 responses so far

Category: Introduction | Date: Mar 24 2008 | By: admin

Forest Fragmentation - Most of the Interior Atlantic Forest which remains survives in small pockets in the Pontal do Paranapanema, a poor rural area west of São Paulo inhabited mainly by traditional rural communities. The IPÊ – Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas began its work in the region in 1997. While some of the forest is protected within the 350 Km² Morro do Diabo State Park, beyond its borders the forest is under threat from sugar plantation, cattle ranching and rural settlements. Population growth in the region has also increased demand for charcoal, leading locals to replace natural forest with fast growing eucalyptus and subsistence agriculture. Two hundred families live inside designated protected areas. Private land is generally subjected to different agricultural activities, with the size of properties varying from 10 to 200 ha (small farms), 200-1.000 ha for larger farms.

Forest fragmentation process on the Upper Paraná Region (source Di Bitetti et al. 2003).

Loss of ecological integrity - Most forest patches are now isolated and too small to maintain ecological integrity without conservation action. Without enough contiguous forest in which to hunt wild prey, jaguars and ocelots increasingly predate domestic animals leading to increasing persecution. Deforestation rates remain high, leading to increased isolation of these species populations, increasing their vulnerability. People compete with jaguars and ocelots for prey, and they are frequently shot by ranchers despite protective legislation.

Biodiversity benefits - IPÊ has developed the concept of using jaguars and ocelots as “Landscape detectives” to inform and feed into the process of reforestation. Information about how these species use the remaining forest is used to plan and manage reserves and large interconnected eco-regions. This cost-effective approach benefits all species that share jaguar and ocelot forest habitat, which as well as these species includes: the critically endangered black-lion-tamarin, lowland tapir, peccaries, macaws and many endangered species.

Black-lion-tamarin, endangered specie that still occur in the Pontal Region. 

Community – local people are central to the project and are project executors as well as beneficiaries. A landscape level approach is being applied, combining research and biodiversity management with community involvement and habitat restoration to empower local people to improve their conditions of living whilst also protecting their forest.  We expanded this community based tree planting program, which will result in over 1.8 million new trees over the life of the project. With IPÊ we are now applying an exciting regional strategy with support from local decision makers to plant forest corridors between remaining forest fragments, which will benefit from this research with jaguars and ocelots. IPÊ has spent the past decade coordinating efforts to conserve a large part of the remaining inland Atlantic Forest in the state of São Paulo by involving farmers, landowners, sugar plantations and local government. The project is currently undergoing expansion, linking forest fragments with new forested wildlife corridors, agroforestry benefit zones and helping over 400 families to cultivate 120 square kilometres of degraded farmland.

Agroforestry system to promote connectivity of forest patches

4 responses so far

Category: Introduction | Date: Mar 19 2008 | By: admin

Mention conservation in Brazil, and most people think of the Amazon and its rapidly diminishing rainforest. There is, however, another endangered ecosystem in Brazil that demands even more urgent attention. The Atlantic forest – Mata Atlântica – once covered 1.2 million Km², over 12 % of Brazil. Bordering the Atlantic coast it stretched up to 1.000 Km inland. Today, only about 80.000 Km² – around 7% of the original forest – remain. This project builds on existing study of the jaguar Panthera onca and ocelot Leopardus pardalis to improve conservation of the remaining Atlantic Forest at Upper Paraná Region and create a situation where local farmers, their livestock and wildcats can coexist. Jaguars are excellent indicator species; its role as a top predator and need for expansive areas of habitat with a good prey base, mean that its presence can be equated with conservation that is working. Ocelots increase the Landscape Detective Model by providing information on smallest forest fragments where jaguars are absent. By studying these species conservationists can learn how these cats use the landscape, where people and jaguars are likely to come into conflict and which areas should be prioritised for conservation. The main goal of this long-term project is to use jaguars and ocelots as landscape detectives to develop a network of wild core-reserves for the Upper Paraná Region in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The conservation model, once developed has the potential to be expanded throughout other areas of Brazil for effective forest conservation with maximum benefits for biodiversity.

Key Aims:

- Obtain further data on jaguar and ocelot density, home range, habitat selection, population genetics and demography in the upper parts of the Paraná River to fill the information void;

- Use data to map the most used dispersal routes and pathways in the Paraná Corridor network to identify priority areas for conservation;

- Engage stakeholders and involve them in conservation of wildlife and forest;

- Disseminate best practice for Wildcats Conservation throughout South America;

- Inform Brazil’s national conservation policy though institutions;

- Establish new reserves along the study area, involving private landowners next to existing protected areas as part of the government’s Private Natural Heritage Reserve network;

- Contribute to development of a tri-national corridor project between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay using the “Landscape Detectives” approach to secure a future for jaguars, ocelots and wildife.

3 responses so far