Translocation as a tool for the conservation of the jaguar Panthera onca: a case study in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest FERNAND O C.C. AZEVEDO,PEDRO H. NOB RE,GIO VA N N E A. F ERREIRA
RONALD O MORAT O,ROGÉRI O C. DE PAU L A,PAU L O R. AMARAL,EDUARDO E I Z IRIK CAROL IN E C. S AR TOR and ARTUR ANDRI OL O
Abstract The success of translocation as amanagement tool is based on reversing the factors that led to a population be- coming threatened or locally extinct. We assessed whether translocating a jaguar Panthera onca into the surroundings of a protected area in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest with a resident jaguar population was effective. We captured a male jaguar in an urban area where there were no substan- tiated previous records of jaguars. In the capture area only one predation event had been recorded, when the jaguar killed several chickens a few days before capture. After cap- ture we translocated the jaguar to a forested area 240 km from the capture site, adjacent to the Rio Doce State Park. To investigate whether the potential geographical origin of the individual was any nearby fragment of the Atlantic Forest or nearby fragments of the Cerrado ecoregion, we genotyped it for 12 microsatellite loci and compared the re- sults to a database developed previously.We fitted the jag- uar with a GPS/VHF collar from which we recovered 2.5 months of data. Post-release monitoring with camera traps indicated the jaguar established residence within the region of the Park and we recorded no events of predation on livestock. The genetic analysis indicated that the jaguar resembled individuals from the Inner Atlantic Forest, Cerrado and Amazon. Translocation was an important
FERNANDO C. C. AZEVEDO* (Corresponding author,
orcid.org/0000-0001-
9831-6692,
fazevedo@ufsj.edu.br) Departamento de Ciências Naturais, Universidade Federal de São João del Rei, 36301-160, São João del Rei, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
PEDRO H. NOBRE (
orcid.org/0000-0001-6702-227X) Departamento de
Ciências Naturais, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil GIOVANNE A. FERREIRA (
Pesquisas Cananéia, Cananéia, Brazil
orcid.org/0000-0003-1943-8320) and PAULO R. AMARAL Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade, Atibaia, Brazil
Molecular, Escola de Ciências da Saúde e da Vida, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
ARTUR ANDRIOLO (
orcid.org/0000-0002-5582-0183) Departamento de
Zoologia, Laboratório de Ecologia Comportamental e Bioacústica, Univer- sidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil
*Also at: Instituto Pró-Carnívoros, Atibaia, Brazil
Received 03 November 2022. Revision requested 1 February 2023. Accepted 19 May 2023. First published online 8 August 2023.
RONALDO MORATO (
orcid.org/0000-0002-8304-9779), ROGÉRIO C. DE PAULA (
EDUARDO EIZIRIK (
orcid.org/0000-0002-9658-0999) and CAROLINE C. SARTOR (
orcid.org/0000-0002-3552-0140) Laboratório de Biologia Genômica e
orcid.org/0000-0001-5507-7206) Instituto de
tool for avoiding potentially negative interactions between the jaguar and local people, and may have benefitted the jaguar population at the release site.
Keywords Brazil, jaguar, Panthera onca, predation, survival, telemetry, translocation, wildlife management
The supplementary material for this article is available at
doi.org/10.1017/S0030605323000662
et al., 2016). The level of isolation of some populations and the increasing human encroachment into their habi- tats could prevent the establishment of suitable corridors to reconnect populations, thus compromising the long-term persistence of jaguars across the Atlantic Forest (Paviolo et al., 2016). Translocations could promote the long-term persistence of these small and isolated jaguar populations (Massei et al., 2010). Translocation is widely used for apex carnivores involved in human–wildlife conflicts but without a consensus on its effectiveness (Fontúrbel & Simonetti, 2011). We assessed whether translocating a jaguar into the surroundings of an Atlantic Forest protected area with resi- dent conspecifics was effective. The presence and behaviour of this jaguar in an urban area led to public pressure for its capture and translocation. The jaguar population at the protected area had an estimated density of 1.61 ± SE 0.6 individuals/100 km2 (Azevedo et al., 2022). We adopted the IUCN (2013) guidelines for conservation translocations, which require a feasibility study, a preparation phase, a release phase and a monitoring phase. The capture site is within the Botanical Garden of the
J
Federal University of Juiz de Fora in the municipality of Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais state, Brazil (Fig. 1), within a re- maining fragment of semi-deciduous Atlantic Forest that, together with other preserved remnants, totals c. 3.74 km2 (Rabelo & Magalhães, 2011). The forest fragments are sur- rounded by an urban area (McKinney, 2006). The release site is a forested area adjacent to the c. 360 km2 Rio Doce State Park (Fig. 2) in south-eastern Brazil, the largest con- tinuous protected remnant of Atlantic Forest in Minas Gerais state (Gontijo & Britto, 1997). On 25 April 2019,an adult jaguar appeared within the Botanical Garden and
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits non- commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2024, 58(2), 250–254 © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323000662
aguar Panthera onca populations are becoming threa- tened or locally extinct in the Atlantic Forest (Paviolo
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140
