Jaguar Detectives

And back home again! Time to update everything! We just arrived and received good news: one article on our work with jaguars was published on Época, a very important Brazilian magazine. The article “A caçada para salvar onças: Como uma pesquisa de preservação de felinos virou um dos maiores projetos para salvar florestas do país” (The hunt to save jaguars: how a research for felid conservation became one of the largest project s to save forests on the country) writed by Juliana Arini.

The hunt to save jaguars on Época.

Photo published on the article. Landscape Detectives Team. From left to right (kneed) Dênis Sana – Pró-Carnívoros researcher, Cheiro (in memorian) – field assistent, Thiago – veterinarian, Pedro – field assistent. On back: Laury and I.

It starts talking about Carlos Roberto Platero. In the seventies and eighties, Carlos used to be hired by farmers in Mato Grosso do Sul to kill the jaguars that predated cattle in the region. He killed more than 200 felines in his career as a hunter. However, today he is on our side, helping IPÊ and Pró-Carnívoros, as well as many other research institutions all over Brazil, in ecological hunts to capture jaguars and pumas to attach radio-collars to them and monitor these animals for scientific purposes.

Carlos during jaguar capture companion at Ivinhema State Park, Mato Grosso do Sul State.

His knowledge and experience are incomparable and – to me – he is a living legend. I read about Carlos when I still was in high school, and the story of that hunter who came to help researchers to catch jaguars thrilled me. Many years after the boring daily classes at that high school in Minas Gerais, in July 2004, I found myself running beside him and his dogs to capture a female jaguar and change its radio collar. By the way, last Monday (July, 7) was the fourth anniversary of my very first jaguar capture.

Carlos and I on Ivinhema in my first jaguar capture for radio tagging.

Carlos’ skills to follow tracks and his knowledge of these felines are matchless.

Laury and Carlos tracking jaguars.

Many people think it is incongruent to have so much admiration for old hunters such as Carlos and Sasha Siemel (a Ukrainian who became well-known for killing jaguars in Pantanal with a kind of spear called zagaia). However, these men come from a different historical moment, far different from modern safaris.

Sasha Siemel, author of Tigrero.

The article continues talking on our efforts at Upper Paraná Corridor interviewing Laury and explaining the Landscape Detectives approach. It shows a map with five main efforts to promote jaguar conservation in Brazil. The Upper Paraná Corridor (our work in partnership with several institutions), the Caatinga Corridor on the northeast promoted by the governmental CENAP (National Research Centre for Natural Predators Conservation), the Pantanal Corridor promoted by the Panthera Foundation, the North Mato-Grosso region and the Amazonas River.

As this blog, Época is not a scientific magazine. However, if we have in mind that it is one the most read magazine all around the country we can have an idea of how important it can be to promote public awareness on jaguar conservation. After the release of the article we are receiving tons of e-mails asking questions regarding jaguar conservation and reporting hunt and predation problems.

There still a lot of work to do to promote these amazing animals conservation. Please, do not underestimate the power of your help through small donations in this blog.

Cheers!

See you on Monday!