Eco-scientific expeditions for conservation of threatened species: tigers, jaguars and pumas

Dear Claustin, thank you very much for your comments. It make sense to think that we target students and young professionals, but happens that lay people with days of training can make miracles. Perhaps because we are concentrated on doing that, far away from any external inteference. They submerge in the subject. Most of the travelers are do not have any special education on the subject, and we had ladies over 60 years old walking the trails with us that did much better than young ones. So we have found out that age is not a limitation, nor education.
We are dealing intensively with stakeholders and hire people from the local community. We have spoken on local environmental forums (aside from regional, national and international as mentioned before) to raise awareness on how to improve livehood and at the same time harvest the forest sustainably. This is passed on to small children at public, local schools. Participants of our international expeditions do not speak Portuguese, but their presence is much appreciated by the teachers and by the children. Kids loved to show everything they had produced at school to travelers. Locals begun to appreciate what we say, now they come to tell us where they have found jaguar tracks, who's hunting, and so many other things that locals only share with those they trust. Hope to hear from you again, cheers.

Dear Erica, we could not have found the core areas of animal diversity as we did weren't for the advice of locals. They know where the rarest animals have retreated to, their refuges, where they hide.

About funding, national funding agencies disregard the fact that the forest is heterogeneous and that reforestation is not the same as recovery. We cannot fully recover a rainforest just by planting trees, without the fauna, as both fauna and flora have co-evolved. Animals pollinate, disperse seeds, and consume aggressive seedlings giving room for a higher diversity of plants in the forest floor. We have found in the ground that heterogeneity is the rule, as in many areas the forest is empty of many of the original fauna. Resource-demanding species have agglomerated in few refugia. These refugia must be identified and protected to revert the processes of extinction that is going on, and then perhaps expect that the vanishing fauna may once again recolonize the areas they disappeared from.

Our funding have come from travelers who are willing to learn and share with us. What we mainly need is recognition of our work, and partners for several different tasks. For now, it would be great to find partners that advertise our expedition to a broader audience.

What we are doing to have more people coming: we are launching a land trust project to acquire land and build research stations on them and improve existing base camps. This way we can receive more people, more often, and benefit local researchers with better camps and equipment; and we are improving marketing and networking. Thank you.

We indeed track jaguars and pumas on the ground as a mean to raise information that will help their conservation. Security must be indeed in first place. We have made a detailed risk assessment of our activities, and what are the procedures in each case, and these are exposed to participants before our field activities start. We have found that the highest risk is the travelers’ inobservance of our safety protocols. Unlike broadcasted by hollywood movies, risks in the real world are less dramatic than those associated with attacks of wild animals (anacondas and such..!). The situations of higher risk are river crossing and walking over unstable terrain. The risk of falling and twisting an ankle or a wrist, or worse, hitting the head on a rock are our highest concerns.

The large Brazilian cats avoid contact with humans. The only situation I can imagine that can lead to a confrontation is when a wild animal is seriously injured or impaired, then they’ll not act as they normally would and are more prone to assume risks. I've personally witnessed such a situation when, during the light of the day, a puma attacked a dog in a house yard. During a normal encounter these cats just get away from you. I once crouched near a puma that I was radiotracking, so as not to scare it, but it just walked away. It is so safe that during overnight camps we call jaguars with a jaguar caller in the hope that one will reply and approach. The risk is zero. The statistics reveal that it is much more dangerous to stay in town, particularly large towns, where the violence is ever increasing.

Southern Brazil is safer than other regions of tropical South America in many aspects. This is due to its geographic location. At a lower latitude you still get rainforests, but the heat and the conditions for the development of many diseases are not optimal. The area is thus free of yellow fever, malaria, and cholera. There is an increasing risk, however, of contracting dengue fever in suburban areas near some towns, but not at our study site, and it is not a major risk anyway. Dengue fever has been reported to be more common in the southeast, north and northeast of Brazil. The disease is transmitted by mosquitoes, therefore general anti-mosquito precautions should be taken. In any event, there are many and well equipped health facilities even in relatively small towns and near our study area. Snakes incidents are very uncommon in general, but we recommend that travelers use boots with high shafts. Snake serum are available at local health facilities.

We are extremely cautious about food and water. Food is selected item by item and prepared ‘in house’, and we drink bottled water. In the case someone is mildly ill, we carry a first aid kit with many items, including activated carbon, and antibiotics for the most common bacteria and other infectious organisms that may cause discomfort.

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