Dear Supporters of the Lowland Tapir Conservation Initiative,
We just
came back from a fantastic 2-week field expedition to Baía das Pedras, one of
our field sites here in the Pantanal. Our team included five people: my
life-long field assistant José Maria (also known as Zezinho); a wildlife
veterinarian called Felippe Azzolini (my vet Paulo Mangini could not make it to
the field with us this time and Felippe came highly recommended by other
wildlife veterinarians in Paraná state); Arianne van den Boogaard, a zookeeper
from Beekse Bergen Safari Park in the Netherlands; Liana John, a Brazilian
environmental journalist; and myself!
It was a
fantastic expedition, extremely productive! The Pantanal is absolutely
gorgeous at this time of the year. It is the end of the flooding season,
the floodplains are quickly drying out, but there is still enough water around
to make it look so nice and green. Animals concentrate in floodplains and
water ponds … There are huge groups of birds including egrets and storks
everywhere … There are marsh deer and peccaries and many other mammal species
all over the place. Very impressive wildlife sightings … Not to
mention the important fact that the half dry floodplains make it working in the
Pantanal at this time of the year a bit of a challenge for our 1977 Toyota
truck! We got seriously stuck in the mud TWICE!
Anyway …
we captured and radio-collared TWO new tapirs!!! The first of them,
captured on the 16th of May, was an adult male we named “Luis Uruguaio”.
This tapir was named after the Uruguayan photographer Luis Fabini who is
currently photographing the Pantaneiros (local cowboys) of the Pantanal and who
happened to be with us for this tapir capture (Luis is an amazing photographer,
I recommend you check out his work at www.luisfabini.com.
The second tapir was captured three nights later, on the 19th of May. It
was a sub-adult male we named “Felippe Lion”. The first name was in honor
of our veterinarian Felippe and the family name is a continuation of the series
of tapirs named after the student houses of the Westminster School in London,
UK. Tapir fan Benjamin Brind from Westminster School asked me to name
tapirs after the houses of his school (martlets, tudors, lions, and fleuries)
so that he could get other students excited about tapir conservation.
During our last expedition in September/October 2009 we named three tapirs for
Benjamin including: Sonia Westminster (adult female), Benjamin Martlet
(sub-adult male), and Vivek Tudor (adult male). We now have Felippe
Lion! We are still missing a female tapir that we can name Fleury!
Ben, please just give me some more time!
Both
tapirs were captured in the same box trap. Actually, this was the same
box trap where we captured Vivek Tudor and recaptured BandAid in Sep/Oct
2009. This trap was built in the middle of a patch of Acuri palm trees
and so far has been extremely successful in attracting tapirs. I am very
happy to be capturing several tapirs in the same trap. This means I am
catching several tapirs from the same area which will allow me to collect
enormous amounts of data on territorial behavior, reproduction etc. I am
very excited about the data collection in this particular area of Baía das
Pedras, the final results will be extremely interesting. The tapir
anesthesia and manipulations went very well and we managed to collect all the
necessary biological samples for our health and genetic analyses. Samples
are currently being analyzed in two different laboratories here in Campo Grande.
This
time around we were not very lucky with the darting methodology. Although
we walked and drove kilometers and kilometers and kilometers in search of
tapirs all around Baía das Pedras, we only had two tapir sightings. In
both occasions we tried to approach the tapirs but did not have the chance to
get close enough to dart them. Both animals ran away after noticing our
presence. In previous expeditions during the dry season last year we had
an average of 0.8 tapir sightings per day, most of them around water ponds,
which gave us plenty of opportunities to try and dart tapirs. This time
we only had these two sightings in 14 days. Tapirs are not moving around
too much right now. There is plenty of water everywhere and lots of
fruiting trees, therefore it looks like tapirs are staying inside the forests.
On the
other hand, during this expedition we were particularly successful in finding
tapir fecal samples. We collected over 30 samples in different areas of
Baía das Pedras. Fecal samples are used for genetics, fecal parasites and
diet analyses.
A major
accomplishment of this expedition was a visit to one of the rural schools in
the Nhecolândia sub-region of the Pantanal. This school is located at the
Primavera Ranch, a 2-hour drive from Baía das Pedras. These rural schools
are partially subsidized by the municipalities in the surroundings of the
Pantanal, but with huge amounts of support from local landowners. In the
case of the Primavera school, it is funded by the Primavera and Baía das Pedras
ranches. It currently has 15 students from five different ranches in the
surroundings. On the 16th of May we drove the Baía das Pedras kids back
to school after their holidays and spent an entire afternoon visiting the place
and discussing the implementation of our environmental education program with
the school teacher (Marisa). The idea is to use the Primavera school as a
hub for the program, which will reach at least seven other rural schools in the
Nhecolândia sub-region. We will run our first educational activities at
Primavera during our next expedition in July and then expand from there.
We were VERY impressed by the school teacher Marisa, a very committed,
passionate woman, who left her life in the city to teach kids in the middle of
the Pantanal floodplains. Also, we were very impressed by the level of
support provided by the owner of the Primavera Ranch. It is truly an
amazing little school and I cannot wait to start our activities over there!
I wanted
to place into record how wonderful it was to have Arianne and Liana in the
field with us! Arianne quickly became our official gate opener… those of
you who have already been with us in the Pantanal know the issue with the
gates… there is just too many of them! Nobody likes to get out of the car
to open them! But Arianne did not mind at all, she actually enjoyed it,
which was a dream come true! Arianne was a great volunteer and we all
very much enjoyed her participation in the project.
Liana
John joined our team from May 15 to 23. Liana works as a professional
journalist since February 1977 and has specialized on Science and Environmental
Reporting back in 1983. Liana is a big tapir fan and major supporter of tapir
conservation. In 2002, she won the Biodiversity Reporting Award with a
feature story on lowland tapirs based on my tapir project in the Atlantic
Forest. Since then, Liana has published several media articles on
tapirs. It had been years I had been inviting Liana to join my team in
the field, and we finally managed to make it happen! The big news is that
Liana and I are going to work together on a tapir coffee table book to be
published in both English and Portuguese! The main focus will be on the
lowland tapir… including biological and cultural information about the
species. We are both very excited about this project and we are aiming at
having the book published before the next Tapir Symposium to be held in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, in March 2011. It is a tight schedule, but we want to
give it a try!!!!!!!!!
Our next
expeditions will take place in July 1-20 and August 1-20, and I cannot wait to
be back in the field!!! Many exciting activities ahead of us!!! And
I will make sure to keep you all posted! Thank you SO MUCH for your
constant support!
Enjoy
the pictures!
All the
best from Brazil,
Pati
Medici