Is reintroduction a tool for the conservation of the jaguar Panthera onca? A case study in the Brazilian Pantanal
ROS E L IL IA N GASP A RINI-MORAT O,LEONARDO S ART O RELL O,LILIAN RAMPIM CARLO S EDUA R D O FRAGO SO ,J OARE S ADENI LSON MAY J R,PED R O TELE S MARIO HABERFELD,ROGÉRI O CUNHA D E PAUL A and RONALDO GONÇALV ES MOR A T O
Abstract To evaluate the feasibility of reintroduction as a tool for conservation of the jaguar Panthera onca,we adapted the IUCN soft release protocol to reintroduce two jaguars in the southern Pantanal, Brazil. After being kept at rescue centres for 13 months, the jaguars were moved to a 1-ha enclosure with native vegetation on a 53,000 ha ranch in the Pantanal, where hunting is not allowed and prey is abundant. In the enclosure, the animals were fed with meat, dead animals (roadkill) and then, progressively, live wild prey. After 11 months, the jaguars were fitted with collars equipped with GPS/VHF (recording one location per hour) and accelerometers, and released in the same area. The animals established residence near the enclosure, with home ranges, movement parameters, daily activity patterns and prey consumption similar to that recorded in previous studies. Social interaction and reproduction indicated the reintroduction was successful, and that it can be a tool for the species’ survival in areas where the jaguar population is in decline.
Keywords Brazil, home range, jaguar, Pantanal, Panthera onca, reintroduction
la Torre et al., 2017), including the subpopulations in the Atlantic Forest (Morato et al., 2013). The last c. 300 indivi- duals in this forest occur in seven subpopulations, and the
T
ROSE LILIAN GASPARINI-MORATO* (Corresponding author, 0003-2885-0034), ROGÉRIO CUNHA DE PAULA (
orcid.org/0000- orcid.org/0000-0003-1943-
8320) and RONALDO GONÇALVES MORATO (
orcid.org/0000-0002-8304-9779) Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade – Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação de Mamíferos Carnívoros, Estrada Municipal Hisaichi Takebayashi 8600, 12952-011, Atibaia, São Paulo, Brazil E-mail
rose.morato@
icmbio.gov.br
LEONARDO SARTORELLO*(
orcid.org/0000-0001-7607-9577), LILIAN RAMPIM (
orcid.org/0000-0001-8121-3152), CARLOS EDUARDO FRAGOSO ( 0000-0001-8971-2896), JOARES ADENILSON MAY JR ( 0007-9690), PEDRO TELES ( HABERFELD (
orcid.org/ orcid.org/0000-0002- orcid.org/0000-0003-0754-2470) and MARIO
orcid.org/0000-0001-9360-6658) Associação Onçafari, São
Paulo, Brazil *Contributed equally
Received 22 October 2019. Revision requested 20 December 2019. Accepted 19 May 2020. First published online 24 March 2021.
he historical range of the jaguar Panthera onca has con- tracted and many populations are now threatened (De
survival of the species in this biome will depend on reduc- ing jaguar mortality and reconnecting the subpopulations (Paviolo et al., 2016). However, some of these are isolated and the cost of establishment of suitable corridors may be prohibitive (Paviolo et al., 2016), and alternative strategies, such as supplementation and reintroduction, may be re- quired (Galetti et al., 2013). Reintroductions of apex predators, including the few
attempts to reintroduce jaguars, have generally been poorly documented and measurement of failure or success has been hampered by the lack of prior definition of expected outcomes (Breitenmoser et al., 2001). To evaluate reintro- duction as a tool for conservation of the jaguar, we adapted the IUCN (2013) soft release protocol to reintroduce two res- cued jaguars in the southern Pantanal, Brazil (Fig. 1). We chose this area based on five criteria: (1) rescued animals were from the same region, (2) knowledge of the species’ biology in the Pantanal was available, including for the re- lease site (Cavalcanti & Gese, 2010), (3) availability of suit- able habitat (de Paula et al., 2012), (4) prey availability (Perilli et al., 2016), and (5) acceptance by the local com- munity. Our expected outcomes were that the two jaguars would:
(1) prey on wild species (to evaluate this, we compared the species preyed upon with the reported feeding habits of ja- guars in the same area; Perilli et al., 2016), (2) establish resi- dence (establishment of residence may be an indicator of acclimation, and jaguars have resident ranges; Rabinowitz & Nottingham, 1986), (3) have similar home ranges and movement to those reported for jaguars in the Pantanal (Morato et al., 2016), (4) have daily activity patterns com- parable to that of resident jaguars, (5) exhibit social interac- tions (Kanda et al., 2019), and (6) reproduce. In June 2014, during the flood season, a female jaguar and
her two 3-month old female cubswere forced to seek refuge in an urban area of Corumbá, in the state ofMatoGrosso do Sul, in the southern Brazilian Pantanal, climbing a tree c. 2 mfrom a house. An attempt to capture the jaguars resulted in the ac- cidental death of the mother. The two orphans were moved to a wildlife rescue centre in Campo Grande, where they spent 9 months.We then moved them to a new facility in São Paulo state, with better infrastructure and minimum contact with people, where they stayed for 4 months.
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2021, 55(3), 461–465 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000460
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