Jaguars of Brazil - Dynamics,Lifestyle,Datas,Studies,Reports

Options

Dark Jaguar Offline

Jaguar Enthusiast

2,399 Replies

3 Topics

Joined: Nov 2019

Reputation: 50

#322

04-26-2021, 06:43 PM

Great words @peter . His legendary legacy he had left will never be forgotten and shall be inspiration for many. As I was once talking about measurements of jaguars with him I told him about our passion on wild animals in the forum as I also told him twice that there are people from all over the world in the forum sharing the same passion and infos and he said its good to see the interest of us on wild animals in the forum.

I am gonna drop here an interview of Crawshaw done between 1-2 decades ago probably in around 2006.

BY LUIS PATRIANI

With Peter Crawshaw

https://lpatriani.files.wordpress.com/20...-terra.pdf

O Amigo das Onças (The friend of the Jaguars)

''After 30 years of dedication to the preservation of the largest feline in the Americas, Peter Crawshaw has some good news for you: the jaguar population has increased again in Brazil.

The man is a beast. Nobody in Brazil knows more about pumas and specially jaguars than Peter Crawshaw. Despite his gringo name, this Paulista man from São Vicente has dedicated 30 of his 55 years of age to the study of the largest Brazilian feline and third in the world behind only the tiger and the lion. Some say that he even looks like a jaguar, such is his passion for the bush and for field work. Together with his master, German George Schaller, Peter introduced telemetry into the study of animals monitoring their movements with the help of radio transmitters installed in collars. In three decades of chasing - in the best sense - jaguars, the researcher has been through suffocations worthy of adventure movies. On another occasion he was attacked by a jaguar escaping with abrasions. But he has no grudge about his attacker. "She was provoked and reacted. That's all" he minimized.''

When did your interest in jaguars begin?

Peter Crawshaw - ''It goes back to when I was a kid in Rio Grande do Sul, when I went out with my father to hunt marsh harrier bird. When I was 15, I read everything I could find about hunting and adventures in the woods. The highlight of the emotion was the chases made by the hounds or an unexpected encounter with the beast. That really excited me and I became interested in the preservation of these wild animals. I decided to study biology.''

How was your first professional job?

Peter Crawshaw - ''I was in my last year of college in 1977 when I learned that the German researcher George Schaller was coming to Brazil to study jaguars in the Pantanal. After all, it was unlikely that a world biology icon would pay attention to a simple student. I couldn't believe when he answered me with an invitation to meet him in Brasilia and on top of that, to be his assistant and accompany him in the fieldwork.''

What was the importance of working with George Schaller for the feline research in Brazil?

Peter Crawshaw - '' For me, his legacy was the love for field work and respect for animals. He used to say that we should not regard biology as a profession but as a religion. His importance for Brazilian research is undeniable. He introduced telemetry in the country and from this we were able to discover many things about the habits of the jaguar. Before that, the information was only in the book by Toni Almeida, a Brazilian hunter who killed jaguars and then wrote down information such as their weight, size and stomach contents.''

How long did the project last?

Peter Crawshaw - ''George stayed a little over a year in Brazil. He could not stand the pressure from the ranch manager in Acurizal (MS) who was afraid that the area would become a reserve and incited the ranchers to kill the three jaguars that were being monitored. All of them died and George felt responsible. He went to China to study giant pandas. I continued the work with the American biologist Howard Quigley, but in the Miranda region. In the end, in 1984, we had in our hands the largest study on jaguars in the region.''

What did you discover in practice at the end of the work?

Peter Crawshaw - ''We learned for example that jaguars cover territories of 100 square kilometers. Unlike other cats they have diurnal habits and their diet is individualized, that is, an inheritance brought from their parents.''

At that time, how was the situation of the jaguar in the Pantanal?

Peter Crawshaw - ''It was practically extinct. After 30 years of drought and increase of pastures it was very difficult to find any. The ranchers killed them indiscriminately to preserve the cattle even before there was any attack. There were only considerable groups of jaguars in the regions of Acurizal, Miranda and Porto Jofre, on the banks of the São Lourenço river. ''

Is the reduction of territory and consequent lack of food a bigger threat than predatory hunting?

Peter Crawshaw - ''No, hunting is still the biggest threat. This became very clear during the five years that I spent researching jaguars in the Iguaçu National Park where the vegetation cover was large and stabilized.''

You went back to the Pantanal and recently finished a study to evaluate jaguar populations in the region. What is your conclusion?

Peter Crawshaw - ''The number of jaguars has grown again. We still don't have consolidated figures but we could see the increase from the sightings of animals, footprints and photos taken by camera traps, but their proliferation was not due to the awareness of hunters which is worrying. In fact, the animals have benefited from the great floods that have inundated three quarters of the Pantanal pastures in the last 30 years compromising farming and cattle raising in the region.''

So the risk of extinction has not been averted?

Peter Crawshaw - ''Not yet and that is my fear. We cannot go back to the dramatic situation of the 1970s. Everything indicates that the flood cycle is over and now a dry period has begun again. And the pastures will return to the region, taking over space.''

How can we prevent ranchers from hunting jaguars to protect their cattle?

Peter Crawshaw - ''We've started a project in the region of Corumbá to show ranchers a series of measures to make it harder for the jaguars to get access to the cattle, in addition to evaluating the behavior of the animals when faced with these containment measures. For example: electric fences, guard dogs, lighting, night grazing, not leaving the pasture near the edge of the woods and driving calf cows close to the headquarters. There is no magic formula but specific solutions for each case. The most important thing is to show the owners that there are creative solutions to the problem, not just complaining about the attacks and killing the jaguars.''

What about the idea of compensating farmers who lost their cattle?

Peter Crawshaw - ''Unfortunately, it didn't advance. This would require a federal fund to pay these indemnities but the government didn't want to finance it. Besides, the idea would only reward the attacks done by the jaguars and not those committed by pumas which are more numerous and aggressive.''

Are the ranchers who have opened their properties to ecological tourism realizing that jaguars can also be good business?

Peter Crawshaw - ''In fact, some have already realized that the eventual damage that jaguars cause to livestock is offset by the attraction that they exert on guests interested in photographic safari.''

What is the main difference between jaguars and pumas?

Peter Crawshaw - ''Despite being smaller, the puma is responsible for the vast majority of unprovoked attacks. They are also more flexible and can survive in forest fragments which is not the case with the jaguar which needs large areas. The pumas have even learned to use eucalyptus forests (where diversity is low) to hunt and serve as a corridor between small patches of forest.''

How are the cats captured and monitored?

Peter Crawshaw - ''We start by tracking the signals emitted by the radio antenna installed on the collar of one of the jaguars belonging to the research group. Then we chase it by boat or on horseback. Once located, we capture the jaguar using traps or dogs to corner them usually high up in the trees. Then we shoot anesthetics with a rifle to make it sleep so we can examine it.''

In these 30 years, have you ever suffered any kind of attack?

Peter Crawshaw - ''I was attacked only once and in a completely unusual situation. I had to interpose myself between a jaguar that I was monitoring and a woman who was photographing us inappropriately in a restricted area. The jaguar got annoyed with the flash from the camera and went after her, but luckily the animal who had just woken up from sedation slipped and gave me time to intervene. I only got a bite on my index finger and a few scratches but luckily I managed to run back to the car and escaped from it. But I want to make one thing very clear: we must not think that jaguars go around out there attacking people. In this case she was provoked and reacted.''

*This image is copyright of its original author

The attack case of his last answer right above that I have once posted here, the jaguar was indeed CG atlantic forest female from Iguaçú Parque as I was suspecting, it was confirmed by Sandra Cavalcanti who was part of that capture campaign with Crawshaw, she was near the area in the moment of the conflict as she also described the case. About the name she said CG stands for ''Curta e Grossa'' which is a slang we use here in Brazil to say one is kinda like ''straight to the point on a rough/brute way''.

Anyways its very interesting how Dr.Crawshaw mentions the terrible times it was for jaguars in the 70's.

Lastly I am gonna repeat it here the same I just mentioned in the Modern Weights thread that Peter Crawshaw was finishing writing his book and in December last year he finished the last chapter of the creative write and there was only one chapter left to be finished but I don't know if he finished it or if it will get published but I am looking forward in case it does.

3 users Like Dark Jaguar's post