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In Search of Jaguars
03/26/2015 - 09h53
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MARCELO LEITE
SPECIAL ENVOY TO CÁCERES (MT)
Five days of expeditioning with the NGO Bichos do Pantanal (Pantanal Animals), 930 km traveled (675 km on the Paraguay River and its tributaries, plus 255 km on dirt roads) and 1,281 cormorants. And not one jaguar.
This is how the food chain works. On top fit there are very few individuals, and in the forests of Brazil the "Panthera onca" reigns supreme in solitude. You need much insistence and some luck, good or bad, to come across one.
It is recommended to look for them on board a boat for safety. Which is precisely what biologist Douglas Brian Trent does once a month. He coordinates the research carried out at Bichos do Pantanal, which includes the systematic survey of the fauna in the 300 km of river between Cáceres and the Taimã Ecological Station.
The abundant vegetation in the wetlands attracts large numbers of capybaras (we saw 16), which are herbivorous. They are the jaguar's favorite meal to roam the area, and in second and third places are anacondas and alligators for them to feast on.
Cowboy João Pires has witnessed the state in which a jaguar left an alligator, when he himself almost ended up as jaguar food.
Pires and other cowboys at Santo Antônio das Lendas, on the banks of the Paraguay River, were drawn to a congregation of vultures. When they got there, there was only a half-eaten carcass of an alligator.
The cowboy only felt the animal's breath when it was already charging to him. He tried to scare her with his hat, but the kicks and bites hurt one of his arms, which broke. It was the mutt, Brasão, "systematic", that saved him with a bite to the jaguar's belly, which then pulled away.
Less fortunate was fisherman Luiz da Silva Alex Lara, who fished small fish for bait. When he was camping by the river, he was attacked by a jaguar in 2008, and, at 21 he died.
Trent explains that this subspecies that lives in the Pantanal, the "Panthera onca palustris", is the largest. A male can reach 200 kg. Its jaw is considered to be the strongest of all cats.
The American, who studied at the University of Kansas and lived for more than three decades in Brazil, has recorded 42 jaguars in the Pantanal with his telephoto lens and camera traps (cameras with sensors fixed in trees).
Journalists and MARCELO LEITE and LALO DE ALMEIDA traveled to Pantanal at the invitation of "Bichos do Pantanal" organization.
Translated by CRISTIANE COSTA LIMA
Read the article in the original language
Lalo de Almeida -24.fev.2015/Folhapress | ||
The biologist Douglas Brian Trent coordinates the research carried out at Bichos do Pantanal |