The Margay’s distribution range extends from central Mexico through Central and South America to Uruguay and northern Argentina.
Margays are the wizards of the tree tops, and are beautifully adapted to an arboreal habitat. One unique characteristic allows them to move and hunt more effectively in the trees. Their broad, soft feet and mobile toes allow them to hang from tree limbs by one hind foot, and flexible ankles can rotate the foot 180 degrees outward. They are exceedingly quick, and even during a fall they can grab hold of a branch with one front or hind paw and climb up again. Broad soft feet provide a good platform for jumping and an effective gripping surface for climbing.
Their exceptionally long, heavy tail aids in balancing while moving from tree to tree. In some areas, Margays hunt, sleep, and even have their young in trees. When they do descend, they walk slowly head first down the trunk, unlike most cats who rush down or descend hind feet first. Captive cats have been seen jumping nearly six metres straight in the air and nine metres horizontally.
Geoffroy’s Cats L geoffroyi in northern Patagonia. Photo by Fundacion Protejamos Patagonia
The transformation of natural habitats into cropland and ranch lands is one of the major threats to biodiversity globally. The colonization by Europeans of the Argentine Patagonia caused strong modifications of the natural steppes and grasslands of this vast territory. Settlers introduced sheep towards the end of the 18th century, and in 50 years an estimated 50 million of the animals grazed the natural vegetation causing habitat degradation and local processes of desertification. In addition to sheep, several wild mammals were also introduced.
Habitat loss, modification and changes in mammal community composition interacted with persecution to create an environment that was no longer suitable to several wild species.
We know that pumas (Puma concolor) and guanacos (Lama guanicoe) were eliminated from most of the Patagonian lowlands and that culpeo fox (Lycalopex culpaeus) populations were greatly reduced. These species have recolonized most of Patagonia in the last decades thanks to the reduction in sheep stock. This was caused by a sharp decrease in the price of wool and in productivity, because habitat degradation caused by the grazing sheep provoked desertification. However, we have absolutely no idea of the effects these processes had on the population of small wild cats. We do not know their population size or the threats to their conservation.
The distribution range of two species of small wild felids extends to the southern latitudes of the Patagonian lowlands: the Geoffroy’s cat (Leopardus geoffroyi) and Pampas cat (Leopardus colocolo pajeros). With a size of 673,000 sq km, the Patagonian steppe ecoregion in Argentina represents a large portion of the distribution range of both the Pampas cat and Geoffroy’s cat.
The Pampas cat has been very poorly studied, but it is considered rare throughout most of its distribution range and close to extinction in the Pampas grasslands of Argentina. Because of this rarity and the loss of natural habitats that is affecting many of the regions where it occurs, the Pampas cat is listed as Near Threatened globally and Vulnerable in Argentina. However, this categorization is based on the assumption that the Pampas cat is a single species, while the most recent and comprehensive reviews of its taxonomy strongly suggest that it should be divided into 5 species. If we accept this new taxonomy, the Pampas cat populations inhabiting the Patagonia would belong to species L. pajeros and its conservation status would require urgent assessments, also because this species is currently receiving little conservation attention in Argentina (Lucherini et al. 2018).
In comparison to the Pampas cat, the Geoffroy’s cat has been more studied and is considered relatively common across most of its distribution range, which led to its categorization as Least Concern both globally (Pereira et al. 2015) and nationally. Nevertheless, the scant evidence we have indicates that the Geoffroy’s cat may be rare and even absent from portions of the Patagonian steppe.
In summary, the information on the presence of these wild cats in the steppe habitats that occupy the lowlands of Patagonia is still extremely scarce and nothing is known about their population abundances. This lack of knowledge would not necessarily be a reason for concern if it was not for the understanding that sheep ranching has caused extensive modification to natural habitats and to the native wildlife of Patagonia. There is also clear evidence that there are intense and deeply-rooted conflicts between carnivores and ranchers in this region and that ranchers frequently kill small cats because they perceive them as predators of lambs and chicken.
The Patagonia Cats Project (PCP) aims to fill this gap and improve our understanding of the natural history and conservation threats of the Pampas and Geoffroy’s cat populations in the Patagonian steppe. However, we also plan to start actions to reduce threats as soon as they are identified by working locally with different social actors.
How can we do it?
The Patagonian steppe is a very large territory; thus, I am actively promoting collaboration with other researchers, governmental agents, and conservation practitioners. I have already created a network that will share information on cat presence but also awareness material, to amplify the reach of my project and facilitate achieving its goals.
Information on cat distribution and abundance will be obtained by camera trap surveys. Cameras will be displayed in a set of sites representative of the diversity of habitats of this region, both in protected areas and private ranches. To understand conservation threats, we will interview local people, especially ranchers. In person interviews are very effective at learning the human dimension of conservation problems, such as the conflicts between carnivores and local people related to predation on livestock and to collect information for species that are rare or difficult to detect.
As soon as we have a better idea of those threats, we will design and implement tools to address them in specific forms. Meanwhile, we will carry out awareness activities with adults on the ecological role of these species (with emphasis on the control of rodent populations), and provide information on how to easily build predator-proof chicken coops. Simultaneously, we will conduct environmental education activities in rural schools to create pride among children of having these beautiful species in their country.
The most endangered cat in The Americas needs your help. Researchers of the Andean Cat Alliance are going all out to learn as much as they can about this beautiful little cat before it’s too late. The entire population of the Andean Cat throughout their range is estimated to be around 1,300 cats. Conservation measures are urgently needed, and you can help.
#1 Spreading The Word
The biggest, most reversible problem facing the Andean cat is one that this campaign seeks to reverse: no one knows this species exists and is fighting for survival.
Because most people have never heard of Andean cats, very little support from the wildlife conservation community is available to help these cats face human-caused challenges that are driving them closer to extinction: climate change, habitat ravaging mining, vicious feral dogs, and myths held by locals who, in turn, kill these cats with trained hunting dogs.
Despite only catching a glimpse of this cat once in the wild (and being one of less than 10 people to ever do so), researcher and conservationist Rodrigo Villalobos has made it his life’s work to conserve these elusive creatures. Through hiking thousands of miles through the Andes Mountains over the span of 12 years and setting a network of camera traps, Rodrigo and his research partner Cristian have discovered one of the rarest populations of Andean cats.
The Power of Wildlife Documentaries
Wildlife documentaries raise awareness about important wildlife issues through high quality imagery. Just think about African wildlife that are relatively easy to see and film — lions, elephants, and rhinos. Most people have never stepped foot in the African savannah yet, through documentary films, we feel like we’ve looked inside their private lives and have a strong understanding of the huge conservation battles these creatures are facing. But what happens with wildlife that is very difficult to film because they are very secretive, rare, and live in extremely harsh terrains? Unfortunately for the Andean cat, this is the problem their species is facing. Now, for the first time in Andean cat conservation history, our team has found a reliable location to film this cat. This is where you come in for the Andean cat: we need you to improve the quality of our footage by 4K professional, high definition cameras. With high quality footage we have an extremely high chance of getting word about Andean cats out to people around the world through syndicated and huge media networks.
Through funding assistance of 501(3)c nonprofit, Friends of Fauna, you can make any size contribution right now and be one of the people to purchase the actual equipment that will be used to film, by camera person, the Andean cat in high definition for the very first time. Can you imagine being able to say you funded the very first camera to film the African elephant or Bengal tiger and introduce these species, through the power of social media, to the world? This is the exact opportunity you have to do with an animal even rarer than elephants or tigers — the Andean cat.
The Andean cat is one of the most enigmatic creatures of Earth, and conservationists have been struggling for years to design effective conservation actions for a species that has been considered the ghost of the Andes. Reality proves that we need to be able to find key areas where the cat is, to make the most relevant decisions that will ensure its long term conservation.
You can make this happen, your support is critical to find hotspots for conservation.
An anonymous donor provided matching funds to buy equipment for making a big scale camera trapping effort in key areas, for long term conservation of Andean cats and a whole landscape. With the acceleration of global warming and the knowledge that Andes and Patagonia will be highly impacted by this phenomenon, it is URGENT to find these sites, and you can make a difference!
Your gift will be matched completely, so you will double your impact immediately, but you need to hurry, this offer ends the first week of January, so PLEASE, donate NOW!
If you give:
USD $40 we can buy batteries and memory cards for one camera
USD $80 you support food and lodging fo one field person
USD $180 you buy a regular camera trap
USD $450 you gift an HD camera trap
USD $2500 you cover a field campaign to review cameras for a whole team!
Every amount helps and will be immediately matched!
Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) female in front of mountains, Torres Del Paine, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
Until recently, it was virtually impossible to reliably see and photograph a wild puma. That has all changed in the last five to ten years. I just returned from an eight-day trip to southern Chile, where I had the privilege of seeing twelve different pumas, some as close as ten yards (nine meters) away from me.
Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) female, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
Until last fall, I lived in central California for over twenty years. Pumas — also called mountain lions, cougars, catamounts, shadow cats, among many other names — live there as well. Yet in all my time actively looking for these elusive cats I never even glimpsed the tail end of one. It required traveling halfway around the world to fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing one of these cats freely walk on this earth.
Mountains reflected in saline lake, Amarga Lagoon, Torres Del Paine, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) mother and six month old cub nuzzling, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
The reason for this is simple, conservation. Torres del Paine National Park and the adjacent 6,662 ha Laguna Amarga Ranch provide a large area where pumas are not persecuted. This has led to about fifteen individual animals not being afraid of people. Those same animals are the ones featured in my images, and everyone else who has traveled to most southern part of Chilean Patagonia.
Mountain Lion (Puma concolor) sixteen month old cub, Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
This was a once in a lifetime experience for me, but being a conservation photographer focused on wild felids, it’s important to look at the bigger picture. During interviews conducted in 2005-2006 Anna Kusler and her colleagues determined that 86% of ranchers surrounding Torres del Paine National Park had a negative perception of pumas, due to pumas predating on their domestic sheep. Additionally, 100% of the interviewees had a negative perception of guanacos, the pumas principal prey, due to their perceived competition with sheep for grass. This outlook does not bode well for any of the wildlife surrounding the park.
Guanaco (Lama guanicoe), Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile
As Kusler’s paper suggests, there are a few options to create a system that allows for more co-existence between the human population and the local wildlife. This includes using livestock guarding dogs, corralling sheep at night, and of course eco-tourism. The owners of the aforementioned Laguna Amarga Ranch switched from sheep husbandry to puma ecotourism after a harsh winter storm killed many of their animals in 1995. They never looked back. During my trip, there were four different tour companies using their land to reliably see and photograph pumas. The densities of pumas were so high in the area, we almost always had the pumas to ourselves. From a purely economic standpoint, an alive puma was worth more than a dead one. From an emotional standpoint, seeing these animals in the wild are moments I will never forget. I am excited by the idea that this change of thought will happen in the United States as well, sooner than later.
Kusler A., Sarno R., Volkart N., Elbroch M., Grigione M. 2017. Local perceptions of puma-livestock conflict surrounding Torres Del Paine NP, Chile. Cat News 65, 13-16, 2017.
The Wild Felid Legacy Scholarship from the Wild Felid Research and Management Association (WFA) provides financial aid to a graduate-level university student conducting research on wild felids in the Americas. The scholarship is awarded in early summer. The recipient(s) receive $1,000 and are recognized in the WFA’s newsletter, the Wild Felid Monitor. Applications are evaluated based on: demonstrated need for financial aid; participation in a research project that aims to improve our understanding of wild felid biology, management and/or conservation; and undergraduate and graduate GPA.
We will begin accepting applications for the 2017 scholarship January 15, 2017. All application materials must be received by the Scholarship Chairperson by MARCH 30, 2017. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
The jaguarundi Puma yagouaroundi is a widely distributed small cat in Latin America. However, its natural history, including its distribution, is still very little understood.
This rare photo, obtained by the GECM (Grupo de Ecología Comportamental de Mamíferos, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina) in southern Buenos Aires province, central Argentina, confirm that jaguarundis are still present, in the southernmost limit of the species geographic distribution range. It is important to mention that this is the only photo of this cat obtained in 384 camera trap stations, which indicates that the jaguarundi is the rarest felid species in the region (where the Geoffroy’s cat, Pampas cat, and puma also occur) and confirms the need for more detailed studies to better assess the conservation status of the species in central Argentina and throughout its range.
Estela Luengos Vidal, M. Guerisoli, N. Caruso, M. Franchini, Z. McDonald, and M. Lucherini
The puma (Puma concolor) is the most widespread top predator and one of the most controversial carnivores in Argentina. It occurs from the high-altitude deserts of the Andes to tropical and subtropical forests, and from the Pampas grasslands to the Patagonian steppe (Nowell and Jackson 1996). The natural prey base of Argentinean puma populations formerly included vicuña, guanaco, Patagonian huemul, taruca, Pampas deer, Marsh deer, rheas, Plain viscachas, Mountain viscachas, Patagonian hare, and capybaras. In the southernmost part of the country large native prey still comprise the bulk of puma diets (Zanón et al. 2012); however, during the last two centuries, hunting of wild prey and conversion of natural habitat into ranches and farms increased conflicts with humans and predation on livestock (Novaro et al. 2000, Walker and Novaro 2010).
This is the case in the southern Espinal where we have been working on carnivore-human conflicts since 2008. Dense shrublands and grasslands of this region have been transformed to create space for livestock. The initial habitat modeling that we performed, based on camera trapping records, show most of the landscape is no longer suitable for pumas (Caruso et al. 2015). A comparison with other carnivores occurring in the region revealed that pumas use sites with moderate fragmentation, but that they prefer preserved areas and avoid sites with significant human presence (Caruso et al. 2016).
To buttress our previous results and understand the variables affecting habitat use by pumas, we carried out a more intensive camera trapping survey over the last 24 months in two adjacent areas that differed in anthropogenic impact. Capture rates were 67.9% of 28 trapping stations in the area farther from the main road with more natural habitats, while pumas were recorded in 28% of 25 stations located closer to the road, where croplands and pastures prevail.
Interview data (2008-2015) show that sheep were the most predated livestock (7.4 head / year), followed by lambs (2.6 head / year), calves (6 head/year), and foals (0.3 head/year). Based on average prices, the economic losses caused by pumas per ranch per year (USD) were $393 for sheep (range $59-$4713) and $431 for cattle (range $70-$5953). Since sheep provide the primary income in the region, damage caused by pumas is a legitimate concern, so we scrutinized effects of puma predation in more detail. Comparing losses caused by pumas with the numbers of livestock owned, we found that pumas killed 2.2% and 3.9% of the total cattle and sheep, though the proportion individual ranches varied from 2% to 17.8%. We obtained a record of confirmed predation events in a 484-km2 area and found that during 16 months, pumas killed 33 sheep and 4 calves ( 2.23/month or 6.8/ 100 km2).
In the same period, ranchers killed 13 pumas (0.79 pumas / month or 2.7 pumas / 100 km2). This intensity of hunting is not justified by the economic impact of puma predation, and a puma population in the Espinal cannot sustain such a high mortality. The conflicts between pumas and local people are exacerbated by poor response by the government, which does not provide compensation to ranchers affected by puma predation nor provide a forum for their complaints. Predictably, local people see puma hunting as the only solution.
In 2015, we began participatory workshops to further quantify livestock losses and share this information with ranchers, hear ranchers’ positions on the causes of puma predation, and identify, with their help, effective mitigation measures. Analyses of data from the first four workshops indicates that ranchers perceive a widespread intensification in puma predation, and believe that diminished human presence in rural areas is the major cause. Other causes mentioned included presence of shrub land, laws forbidding puma hunting, and poor livestock management.
However, we found that only two of the 12 participants had changed their husbandry, whereas nine (75%) tried to kill pumas. Yet only 3 of the participants killed pumas in the previous year (averaging 3.3 puma per person). Of the 7 ranchers who applied mitigation measures, 6 corralled their livestock at night, 1 used donkeys as guardian animals and 1 reinforced their enclosures. Most participants would try mitigation but requested expert advice, because past attempts had failed or proved uneconomical.
We now plan to test the efficacy of Conditioned Taste Aversion to reduce livestock losses. We will start by testing two substances that have proven effective with other carnivores (Massei et al. 2004; Nielsen et al. 2015). We have started collecting puma tissue and fecal samples to investigate genetic differentiation and gene flow in a meta-population framework.
Although puma-livestock conflicts are common throughout Argentina, this is the first attempt to assess their true impact on ranching and the effects of retaliatory killing on puma populations. Our project will provide a baseline without which meaningful management cannot occur. We expect that this project will serve as a pilot experience to reduce livestock predation by pumas and thus provide sound recommendations to mitigate conflict in other areas.
While these may sound like words of wisdom from a mafia movie, they are actually the three steps of a process known as the 3-S treatment and describe the deadly fate of many species of wildlife in rural areas throughout the Americas.
There are a variety of reasons why people resort to the 3-S treatment, including retaliation against an animal that is preying on livestock, or that the presence of an animal classified as endangered restricts a property owner’s land usage. The failure of authorities to consistently respond to people’s demands for assistance in dealing with wildlife conflicts – as well as some countries’ lax enforcement of wildlife protection laws – only serve to amplify the problem.
One certain poultry-targeting ocelot’s life was recently spared in Ecuador, however, thanks to a combined effort on behalf of the Ministry of Environment, a busy rescue and rehabilitation centre called Merazonia, and a farmer who opted for capture and relocation rather than the 3-S treatment. Pending a positive health assessment by Merazonia’s on-site veterinarian, the spotted wild cat would get another chance at life in the wild, not unlike dozens of other animals released by the centre every year.
Founded in 2004, Merazonia’s 250-acre property is located near the village of Mera – one of the gateways to Ecuador’s Oriente region – where the Andean foothills and lush cloud forests progressively give way to the rainforests of the lowland Amazon basin.
The cloud forest near Mera, Ecuador in January 2016 (Photo: Justin Taus).
The centre primarily caters to various species of primates, parrots and other mammals. However, it also assists in collecting data on the region’s cat populations and contributes to their conservation in a variety of ways. In 2015, the centre made national news after it managed to capture images of a rare black melanistic jaguar on one its trap cameras on two different occasions. The same camera, located on a trail through dense forest on the centre’s property, has also photographed other jaguars, pumas, oncillas, jaguarundis, margays and ocelots.
The majority of animals brought to Merazonia are rescues from the illegal wildlife trade, as is the case with an adult puma named Pangui who arrived at the centre in 2011. Extremely emaciated, the puma was one of 30 animals confiscated from a hostel in the Andean highlands where it was kept in a small cage as a tourist attraction. Although the centre initially aimed to release Pangui, it became clear that she was just too domesticated to survive in the wild. It is for this reason that she, like a number of other animals at Merazonia, will live out the rest of their lives in the centre’s large enclosures that are designed to resemble their natural habitats.
Pangui, a rescued Puma patrols her enclosure at Merazonia in January 2016 (Photo: Justin Taus).
Nevertheless, like every true rehabilitation centre, their primary focus is to reintegrate animals back to their forest homes whenever possible. Since its inception, Merazonia has released tens of dozens of animals including primates, reptiles, and cats like oncillas, margays and ocelots.
The story of the ocelot patiently awaiting release, however, is particularly inspiring to Frank Weijand, co-founder of Merazonia, who says it is but one of many positive signs of shifting attitudes in local communities in regards to wildlife conservation. Although he recognizes that some people still resort to the 3-S treatment (which makes it difficult to accurately asses the amount of wildlife being killed), it is increasingly common for people to contact Merazonia to ask for assistance in catching and relocating cats spotted near their neighbourhoods, Weijand says. People have also been more inclined to denounce cases of wild animals being illegally held captive as pets and to report injured animals that are found near roads, he adds.
The fact that cats are being increasingly relocated as opposed to killed is due to the hard work of various conservation NGO’s operating in the field combined with an increase in educational television programs that slowly change the way people see and treat wildlife, says Dr. Rafael Hoogesteijn, Jaguar Program special advisor for Panthera, a worldwide wild cat conservation organization.
Nevertheless, the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species still mentions retaliatory killing due to depredation of poultry as one of the major threats to ocelots’ declining populations, along with habitat loss and fragmentation and the illegal trade of pets and pelts.
An ocelot awaits its relocation in January 2016 (Photo: Justin Taus).
To promote human-wildlife conflict management practices, Panthera runs workshops for ranchers and cattlemen throughout Latin America, and have launched strategy-testing pilot projects on farms in Costa Rica, Belize, Columbia and Brazil. These workshops have been successful in providing communities with low-cost strategies that help prevent predation in the first place. Being proactive, and constantly developing and improving case-specific strategies eliminates the need for people to resort to the dated solution of killing cats or totally eliminating “problem species”, as is still common practice in certain regions of the United States, Argentina and Chile, Hoogesteijn says.
Furthermore, shooting at cats may only worsen livestock predation issues, as Panthera’s studies have found that a high number of “problem cats” had been previously injured by gunshot, causing them to rely on domesticated prey which is much easier to catch and kill, he adds.
In addition to education and outreach programs, an effective feline conservation strategy must also include the establishment of protected areas of adequate size, an increase in monitoring and enforcement of wildlife protection laws, and the need for ranchers to be able to profit from implementing conservation measures on their lands through reward systems, according to Panthera’s Anti-Predation Strategies for Cattle Ranching in Latin America: A Guide. However, Ecuador is one of only three countries throughout the ocelot’s entire range in which they are not protected, according to the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission Cat Specialist Group. This makes the prospects of such a conservation strategy being enacted in the country seem particularly troublesome.
Eventually, the Ministry of Environment completed its paperwork and gave the green light for the ocelot’s relocation in late January 2016. After a quick inspection in the clinic, a team of three Merazonia coordinators set out for the chosen relocation site, Llanganates National Park – a location known to hold healthy populations of cats.
Merazonia coordinators Thomas Ottenhoff (left) and Jason Howard transport the ocelot to the clinic on the day of its release (Photo: Justin Taus).
Once on site, the team started their journey into the jungle accompanied by members of the ministry. Coordinators Thomas Ottenhoff, Jason Howard and Jeni Taylor took turns carrying the cat in pairs, aided by a long pole to which the transport cage was attached. After 45 minutes, they encountered a major obstacle – the turbid waters of a fast-flowing river.
It wasn’t until they were half way through the river that they realized the gravity of the situation, as they suddenly stepped into a frigid, waist-deep pool. As the strong current pushed against them they struggled to hold the cage high in the air to avoid submerging the cat as they fought to regain their balance. To make matters worse, the cat had begun to stress, causing her to repeatedly claw at Ottenhoff’s hands, which were just out of reach.
Once on firm ground on the opposing bank, the cat promptly relaxed as it actively sniffed out its new surroundings. Soon after, upon a high ridge, the team opened the cage door and quietly backed off. After a minute or two, the ocelot calmly exited, and within seconds had vanished into the dark forest. Ecstatic, the team gave each other a high-five and stood there for a minute, not speaking, just smiling.
“It was so cool,“ Taylor recalls of the moment every wildlife rehabilitator dreams of, “you can’t top that feeling of watching such a beautiful animal go back to where it belongs.”
Jeni Taylor (from left), Thomas Ottenhoff, Jason Howard, and members of the Ecuador Ministry of Environment moments before the ocelots’ release (photo supplied by Thomas Ottenhoff).
Author Justin Taus can be reached on Twitter @JustinTaus and his Instagram contact is justintaus
These Pampas cat videos were captured by camera traps set in two different wetlands of the Sechura desert in northwestern Perú. They are part of a research project by Alvaro Garcia Olaechea and Cindy Hurtado, entitled “Human-small cat conflict and distribution of the Pampas cat Leopardus colocolo in northwestern Peru and southwestern Ecuador”.
Andean Cat biologist Juan Reppucci climbs up a ridge near Mount Grenada, northerwestern Argentina.
An Andean Cat slowly walks along a ridge in the high Andes. A camera’s shutter clicks. The cat pauses to see where the noise is coming from. The camera takes a few more pictures. Curious, the feline approaches and cheek rubs the waterproof case surrounding the camera. I wake up.
That’s the dream I had while sleeping in a tent in western Bolivia while working on the Cat in Thin Air project. My name is Sebastian Kennerknecht and for years I have dreamed of photographing the Andean Cat to then use those pictures to aid in their conservation. To make this a reality I teamed up with the amazing biologists of the Andean Cat Alliance and created the Cat in Thin Air project.
The goal of the project is simple: help ensure the survival of the Andean Mountain Cat through education on a local and global scale. The method was also simple at least in concept: photograph the ecology of the cat, the human caused threats the cats face, as well as the conservation actions being taken to protect this animal, to then tell the Andean Cat’s whole story to be shared with the world.
So it was time to head to Bolivia and Argentina to meet up with the researchers who have been studying the species for years.
Cintia Tellaeche and Juan Reppucci loading truck with gear. Do you think we brought enough?The research truck leans heavily around a corner as it climbs higher into the Andes.Timely tightening of all the nuts by biologist Juan Reppucci was appreciated by all!
Once we arrived at the study site the beauty of the area became more than obvious.
Rock formations in the high Andes, Jujuy Province, northwestern Argentina.
So how do you photograph a cat species that most researchers studying the species have never even seen themselves? The answer is simple: SLR camera traps. Imagine a professional camera connected to two flashes all of which are connected to a triggering device that activates the camera when an animal passes through an invisible beam.
One of the camera traps in the Altiplano of Bolivia.
All of the biologists, including Juan Reppucci, Cintia Tellaeche, Mauro Lucherini, Alejandra Torrez, and Juan Carlos Huaranca, being the amazing people that they are put their research projects on hold and helped me not only set up these camera traps but also schlep them up the mountain.
Andean Cat biologist Cintia Tellaeche taking a breather. At over 13,000 feet every step is hard work.
We placed four of these camera trap set-ups to try and get pictures of these elusive cats. After that it was time to be patient and focus on the other photographs (like the threats and the biologist’s research — – but sadly if I write about that here, this post will simply get too long). After five weeks we collected all the traps and checked the results of the cameras.
A weird animal that decided he needed to check the camera trap was working properly (yes, that’s me).Culpeo fox (Lycalopex culpaeus), Ciudad de Pedra, western BoliviaMolina’s Hog-Nosed Skunk (Conepatus chinga), Ciudad de Pedra, western Bolivia
Whenever I go on assignment to try and photograph a wild cat species (in the wild!) that hasn’t been photographed a whole lot, looking through the camera trap images is both nerve racking and extremely exciting. Getting pictures of a fox and a skunk was of course more than great, but it wasn’t the goal of the project. When I saw a picture of an Andean Cat on the back of the camera, all my fears went right away (due to multiple reasons we can’t publish this image yet); and that image was followed by the discovery of a Pampas Cat.
Pampas Cat (Leopardus colocolo), Ciudad de Pedra, western Bolivia
All our efforts were rewarded by this single picture. This will hopefully be the first of many pictures of the cat species found in the Andes. Only time will tell as I will return to South America next year. If you’d like to find out more about the Cat in Thin Air Project, please visit: http://catinthinair.org/ . Finally, I’d like to also make sure Lilian Villaba is acknowledged for all the work she put into making this project a reality!
The Wild Felid Legacy Scholarship from the Wild Felid Research and Management Association (WFA) provides financial aid to a graduate-level university student conducting research on wild felids in the Americas. The scholarship is awarded in early summer. The recipient(s) receive $1,000 and are recognized in the WFA’s newsletter, the Wild Felid Monitor. Applications are evaluated based on: demonstrated need for financial aid; participation in a research project that aims to improve our understanding of wild felid biology, management and/or conservation; and undergraduate and graduate GPA.
