Pampas Cat Update 4/15/02
Dear Carole,
I just returned from Cote d'Ivoire. Thanks for your letter and generous support
for the Pampas cat project.
Based upon repeated camera trap photos of Pampas cats, I am planning a full
radio-telemetry campaign in Brazil. I will probably go in May and stay a month
to
6 weeks. I have several Brazilian students already in place. Please see attached
pics. Clearly Pampas cats! I will also survey several other places in the
Brazilian cerrado with the camera traps.
I still want to see more done on the husbandry from and I hope your efforts to
work with Cristine is continuing. We need to maintain a steady, constant effort
and not give up because things take more time than they should. Patience will
pay off as the 
cameras have
once again shown.
Once I get the Pampas cat project launched and we have a few cats outfitted with
collars my Brazilian colleagues and their students are fully capable of running
the project. This allows me to jumpstart another project. I really want to get
some camera
trapping going in Kalimantan where CI has good relationships with national
parks.
However, let me not jump ahead to far. Give me May and June and I will send you
pics of Pampas cats with collars. The information we gather will help us
estimate how many Pampas cats there are, what they do all day, and what their
ecological requirements are. Once we know that it will help conservation efforts
greatly.
Again thanks for your help and continued support with Pampas cats. --jim
Update
on Guatemala Project:
10/8/01 (Photo at right is a margay)
I'm back from Guyana and malaria free so far though it
was going around - 7 of 21 people had it during the
trip.
My Brazilian colleagues are organizing a trip for me to visit the cerrado to
look for Pampas cats. I have to 
get
the details.
These are some pictures from my camera trapping in
Guatemala. (Photo at left is an ocelot and below is a puma.)
I hope all is well.
Jim Sanderson
(The eyes shine because of the flash of the camera that is set off when the cat walks through the infra red beam.)
Update on Pampas Cat Project:
8/20/01
Dr. Jim Sanderson reports:
I am just back from South Africa where I attended the
international carnivore conference. Gave two presentations: one on guigna, the
other on Andean Mt
cats.
I met Leandro Silveira at the meeting. Leandro is working in Emas N.P. in the
cerrado of Brazil. I sent one antenna, one receiver, and 10 radio collars to
Emas and Leandro happened to receive them. I have great news from Leandro. He
has personally observed Pampas cats in Emas N.P. crossing the road. He says they
are not common but they exist in the park. Moreover, Emas is where Conservation
International is working. Therefore, this is where we will study Pampas
cats. Also we will establish a camera trapping program. Great news indeed.
We have no studies of tigrinas of any meaningful duration. I have a
colleague, Tadue, in Brazil who wants to study tigrinas.
Photo is Pampas cat seen in April 2002.
8/11/01
Cristina Adania in Brazil reports: "Concerning the origin of the
pampas cat, we have the following situation: 3 females are from Brazil (Central
and south of Brazil) and we are not sure about the origin of the males. The
first information is that they are from Brazil, but we want to be certain about
this officially from Sao Paulo zoo. They bred in Sao Paulo zoo and now we have
15 pampas cats in captivity. Until last year, Sao Paulo zoo had 7 pampas
cat. We are receiving one female from Uberlândia zoo (Minas Gerais) and we are
asking Sao Paulo zoo for a male. In this way, we will be starting a distribution
of pampas cat captivity 
population in agreement with the protocol of the
Management Plan of Brazilian Small Cats."
"We are receiving the female from Uberlândia zoo (Minas Gerais). I introduced them to our project and I have compromised to send them a couple when it becomes possible. They also want to work with us on nutrition (the director of Uberlandia zoo is a nutrition master) and the in situ program."
"I have good news! Next week we will send the project (technical project) to work in situ conservation to the units of IBAMA like Cerrado. I asked one friend to translate to English and then I will send it to you. "
"Pat Quillen is coming to Brazil! Pat wrote a grant request asking for an anesthetic machine and she got it! She is bringing the equipment to us with one person who will teach us how to use the equipment. I am very happy because it will be very useful and certainly help many animals."
Jim Sanderson has
been busy as well. While in Switzerland he learned about a group in the
Brazilian Cerrado who are starting to research small wild cats in (Parque
Nacional Grande Sertão Veredas) with guidance of Peter G. Crawshaw. Jim
is trying to find out if they believe there to be any Pampas Cats in this area
so that they can make this cat a priority. These new members of the team
are:
Edsel A. Moraes Jr
Programa de Mestrado em Zoologia de Vertebrados
Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais
edsel.bhz@terra.com.br
Joaquim de Araujo
Programa de Mestrado em Zoologia de Vertebrados
Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais
quincass@hotmail.com
Rafael Aarão
Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais
rafisco@ig.com.br
This is Jim's travel schedule. As you can see, he is actively making a difference for all the small cats. Aug 12-18 South Africa. Aug 20 US Fish and Wildlife Service to talk about small cats, Aug 24-25 California to fund raise, Aug 29 Brazilian Embassy to talk about small cats in Brazil. Sept 1 - Oct 11 Guyana to put out camera traps, November 1 - November 30 Borneo, three weeks in December Philippines. January 10 - February 15 Andes in Chile/Argentina.
Excerpts from letter dated 8/11/01
Dear Carole and Christine,
I wish everyone was working cooperatively. I just received a note from a friend
in Guatemala that the margay he rescued as a 3 month old kitten has died at 6
months old at a "rehab" center. Ulcers in the stomach probably due to
stress took it out. We had planned on outfitting this margay with a radio-collar
and releasing it when it was ready. It would have been a soft release with a
moving food station so as to
keep it well fed during establishment. We wanted to (1) test if the cat could
successfully be released and find itself a territory, and (2) help us find other
margays to study. Alas, it was not to be. We planned on $3k for the study. Cheap
by any measure.
I hope to do the same thing in Vietnam where there is a rehab and release center
for wild cats. Again, a small budget is required. These kinds of projects can be
effectively carried out on low budgets and allow people to tract their financial
support. After the receiver and antennas are paid for (around $1000) the
radio-collars are $250 each. Salary is not much by our standards. Since are
brought to the center and are going to be released anyway, we do not have to
capture any cats. So that is avoided altogether.
I'd like to start a program to fund several of these studies. With a $3000
initial grant and though my network we can keep track of progress. As more cats
come in we can radio-collar them and include them. If things go well, another
$3000 would go a long way because the large expense of the receiver and antenna
is paid for. If the project is not successful as might be the case, I can
recover the receiver and antenna and start elsewhere. And I have contacts who
would oversee the project. Also, I can visit as part of my duties at Conservation
International and so not reduce the $3000 for the
projects.
I'd like to see several such projects running concurrently all over the world.
It can be done and it would greatly increase our knowledge of small cats even if
we only had a few cats. For many species of small cats we have had in the past
NO such studies
whatsoever.
You both should keep pushing the Pampas cat work. Let's make a big deal about
any that successfully breed. Any that are 6 months old (Carole help me out here,
9 months??) we might consider for a radio-collar release program. Think about
it. We could release one or more with radio collars and closely monitor them. Do
a soft release with food out. They could be recaptured at any time since we know
where they are. They might well lead us to a wild population of Pampas cats.
That is, we could take the cats back where they came from and use them,
especially, FEMALES to help find other wild Pampas cats. The hardest part of any
study is LOCATING A VIABLE POPULATION of cats to study. Why not let the cats do
that for us?
What's the population in zoos now? Any new ones come in? From where? Keep on it.
Off to South Africa Sunday - to show slides of Andean Mountain cats and guignas!!
Work together. Work with anyone who wants to join in. Don't concentrate on
differences. Find common ground and work there. What is best for wild cat
populations? Not individuals, but populations. Biodiversity is populations not
individuals. Work for the species. We can make individuals more comfortable and
learn from them in facilities. Maybe they can help us too. In the wild we must
deal with populations. The question is (1) where are populations, (2) how do we
monitor them, (3) how do we protect them.
Do not let a day pass without thinking about this. Let's get some studies going
in the wild. Do you realize that one Pampas cat with one radio-collar will be
the first ever done. If one rehab individual could locate members of its own
kind that cat would have have done something no biologist could do! It might
well die trying however. When we have a breeding populations in zoos we need
volunteers, preferably
females who are more likely to be welcomed by established territorial males.
Jim Sanderson, Ph.D.
Center for Applied Biodiversity Science
Conservation International
1919 M Street, NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20036-3521 USA
202 912-1803 FAX: 202 912-0772
Help us
save the beautiful and rare Pampas Cat:
|
||||||||||||
| Your donation is the gift of life, and a second chance for lions, tigers, cougars and more! | ||||||||||||
|
