Why monitoring

At the top of the food chain, the big cats of the Amazon need vast areas of movement and abundant prey to feed, making them indicators of a balanced ecosystem. However, being at the top of the food chain doesn’t mean they have an easy life. Prey is not waiting resignedly for the predator’s arrival. On the contrary, they are very suspicious and skilled in the art of saving themselves. Only the elderly, inexperienced, or disabled adults and cubs are likely to fall prey to the predator. The predator, in turn, needs to be patient and plan well, for if it fails, it will have wasted precious energy that will be missed in the next hunt.

However, their territories are being fragmented and reduced by the advance of human colonization, which also competes with the predators for hunting resources. Human hunters compete and, at the same time, fear the proximity of jaguars, living in a permanent state of conflict that generally results in the killing of the felines. How to convince the cabocloThere is the caboclo of terra firme (highlands), more dedicated to hunting and agriculture, he knows and moves with agility in the dense forest of the highlands. There is the riverine that inhabits the riverbanks, more dedicated to fishing and short-term crops following the flow of the waters. Brown skin, the result of centuries of miscegenation between native Indians and many other peoples – mainly Brazilians from the Northeast, Portuguese, Bolivians, Peruvians, Colombians, Syrians, Lebanese and Jews – pioneers from the time before the rubber boom, or who took part in the boom. Over time, caboclos absorbed the ancient wisdom derived from many indigenous ethnicities. (local inhabitant) to spare the life of a jaguar? It is not difficult to understand that forest dwellers do not want to deal with jaguars. Changing this visceral hostility into a minimal understanding of the importance of preserving wild species, all of them, comes from a reorganization of the territory, among other things.

Jaguars create their territory by scent, and their sense of smell guides them. When prey becomes scarce, there is no other solution but to search for food in the houses, dogs, chickens, calves, and pigs. These are the only available prey. Humans cannot make it easy for them, but they have an advantage: they are feared. Instinct tells us that many jaguars have fallen by human hands, so suspicion prevails. But that is not the final word. With this animal, anything is possible.

Monitoring can be the first step in understanding habits, territory, and the amount of prey in the region. It is desirable that forest dwellers have the amplified ability to know and live in harmony with the environment where they live. No conservation plan can succeed without this generous collaboration of residents. It is a cultural issue that is gaining strength by example, by the involvement of neighbors, and by consulting research institutions.

Monitoring felines, and not only felines, monitoring the entire ecosystem is an essential practice for the government, education, and society as a whole. The relationship with the natural environment is sustained by more open scientific research, within everyone’s reach. Monitoring is just the first step in a deeper, nourished, and empowered connection with the ancestral knowledge of native peoples.

That emotion that arises when we see these small clips is an invitation to enter and listen to what the big cats say: is the territory big enough for their reproduction? Is there enough food? Healthy and free felines are indicators of a balanced ecosystem. Big cats are the guardians of intact forests and open the doors to an inexhaustible amount of renewable resources, ensuring the climate, biodiversity, and water of life.

That’s why we need alliances, between north and south, between science and residents, between residents and ancestral knowledge, between residents and cats. The ancestral values of these lands still echo in the woods, and it is evident that we cannot do without them.

“We are not the owners of nature; we are only a part of it.” Ancestral wisdom”.

IP08_3859

An authentic woodsman
Raimundo points out the spot where the jaguar jumped.
Native of the region, he worked with me as a woodsman and assistant in tree climbing for many years. He is an excellent hunter, including of jaguars. However, since we started the monitoring project, his unyielding conviction that the only conversation with a jaguar is with a shotgun has somewhat subsided. I have always respected his point of view and never tried to convince him otherwise, and vice versa. When some unsuspecting hunter, resident, or tourist gets lost in the forest, Raimundo is sought out for rescue. And he fulfills his mission.
Once on a forest excursion, he stirred among the dry leaves and indicated the remains of an animal, a piece of skin with some bloodstains. “The jaguar caught the peccary,” observed the man of the forest. Two days later, we returned to the same area and, several hundred meters further from the first find, Raimundo stirred the dry leaves again and revealed recent excrement, and there were hairs, the same hairs as the peccary skin. “The same jaguar defecated here, he’s still around and will stay until he eats the whole peccary.” His sentences are concise and clear, describing the situation beyond doubt. “There are howler monkeys in the trees,” he says. I reply, “I don’t hear anything, how do you know?” “The howler monkeys stay quiet and hidden because of us. But the smell of their feces doesn’t lie.”
There are so many stories like this! Told along the journey, these stories share memorable learnings within the forest, making it clear how special and urgent the reconstruction of an Amazonian culture is, based on the health of ecosystems, sustained by native peoples, biologists, woodsmen, extractivists, photographers and filmmakers, tour guides, and tree climbers… the reconstruction of a genuinely Amazonian civilization, based on the health and evolution of ecosystems.

IP08_3859 – Leonide Principe
Equipment: iPhone 7 with lens iPhone 7 back camera 3.99mm f/1.8 set at 4.0 mm – Exposition: ISO: 80 – Aperture: 1.8 – Shutter: 1/7 – Program: Normal – Exp. Comp.: 0.0,
Original digital capture of a real life scene –
Original file size: 3024px x 4032px
Location: Abra144 (Presidente Figueiredo – Amazonas Brazil)
Date: February 8, 2018 – Time: 4:05:33 PM
Collection: Jaguar Monitoring – Persons shown: Raimundo
Keywords:
felinos, cats, felids, Felinae, mamíferos, mammals, FAUNA, animals, Abra144, Presidente Figueiredo, Amazonas, Amazônia, Amazon, Amazonian, Brazil, Brasil, Brazilian, América do Sul, South America, monitoramento da fauna, fauna monitoring, Grade144, Grid144, PESQUISA, RESEARCH
EN3 An authentic woodsman IP08_3859
PT3 Um autentico mateiro IP08_3859
© – Leonide Principe, all right reserved
https://leonideprincipe.photos

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