Rewilding Iberá. April Editorial: 100 animals living in the wild and a new newsletter...p.2. News

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1 Newsletter Nº 1 Editorial: 100 animals living in the wild and a new newsletter...p.2 News Giant anteater: Consolidating the two populations reintroduced in Iberá...p.4 Collaborating with provincial and national authorities to recover the maned wolf in San Alonso...p.8 Pampas deer: lights and shadows of a recovering population...p.11 The first collared peccaries arrive to Corrientes...p.15 Jaguar Project: Everything is ready to start on-site breeding of jaguars in Iberá...p.17 Profile of our team: Gustavo Solís, veterinarian...p.20 Publications...p.21 Acknowledgements...p.22 Photo: Yamil Di Blanco

2 Editorial 100 animals living in the wild and a new newsletter Since May of 2007, we have been sharing stories of the progress made through our reintroduction projects of fauna in Iberá. In our very first newsletter (in Spanish) we shared a story describing the arrival of a female giant anteater to Iberá after decades of anteater absence in Corrientes. Our story s subject, the anteater Ivoty Porá also the protagonist in the documentary, The Return of the Yurumi continues to live freely, and she has given birth to five offspring in the Espinal (or savanna ) of Corrientes. Following that first newsletter, we published 27 additional issues informing readers of developments in the giant anteater reintroduction project, as well as six more newsletters detailing the pampas deer reintroduction project, and another two describing the jaguar reintroduction Project. (All of these, originally published in Spanish, can be accessed through our website; see Our staff has been busy in recent months, heavily involved in the frenzy of releasing and monitoring animals, coordinating the less glamourous but equally important oversight of paperwork and legal matters, receiving visitors, meeting with experts in the field, and working toward construction of new infrastructure. As a result, we have been overextended and unable to send out newsletters in a timely manner in order to share recent developments of our different projects. While key happenings about our projects have been shared on the Web, and through the press, such as the Newsletter of the Esteros edited by our tireless colleague Marian Labourt, we believe it s important to communicate any news in relation to the restoration of fauna in a reader-friendly format and at the same time provide more detail than was possible in mediums besides our newsletter. Reflecting back on our reporting about individual projects, however, it no longer makes sense to communicate about the projects as if each was an independent story. The reintroduction of both the giant anteater and the pampas deer, the arrival of the peccaries, the start of the jaguar breeding program, the eventual release of the green-winged macaws, and of tapirs, and the reinforcement of the maned wolf population all tell a part of the whole story: the restoration of extirpated fauna within Iberá Nature Reserve. Recognizing this justifies communicating on new events the successes, failures, adventures, and misadventures relative to each species, with each project, acknowledging their interconnectedness, seeing each as one part of the whole story. That is why we are creating this new bulletin about Rewilding Iberá, which is also our first to be published in English. The reintroduction of large species of fauna is popularly known as rewilding. Rewilding pursues the reasonable restoration of the integrity of an ecosystem by reestablishing those highly interactive wildlife species that once lived there, playing key roles as herbivores, predators, or generators of habitats. Despite the evidence for some time of the value of rewilding, it has not been until the beginnings of this century that this focus has become a tangible reality. Southern Africa has led this movement through pioneer projects, while the United States joined in by restoring sea otters on the coasts of the North Pacific and wolves in the large ecosystem of Yellowstone. Now Europe has picked up the baton with dozens of initiatives led by the European Union, various governments, and NGOs, and with a high-level agenda on this matter. Even overpopulated India is making efforts to 2

3 return tigers to reserves in areas from which they had been extirpated through poaching. In Siberia, Russian professionals are teaming up with American biologists to restore the endangered Siberian tiger. In Latin America, the Iberá Rewilding Program is the most ambitious endeavor on the continent. From Alaska to Patagonia, our program is the first to attempt to reestablish so many species of large fauna that were locally extirpated. While Corrientes has been highlighted as the province to have suffered the worst story of extinction in Northern Argentina, Iberá Nature Reserve now boasts one of the best stories in ecological restoration in Latin America. This is being supported by a local society that is gradually seeing ecotourism as the best option for the generation of (and distribution of) wealth, employment, and local pride. Eight years of work have been undertaken already since the return of the first animal to Iberá. Thanks to the help of the government of Corrientes, other provinces, and the national government, NGOs, zoos, rescue centers, scientists, national and international donors, and dozens of ordinary citizens, we can estimate that close to 100 animals of two species the giant anteater and the pampas deer once again inhabit areas from which they had been extirpated decades ago. Ten members of a third species the collared peccary are about to be released in the reserve. And finally, the first female jaguar has just arrived to the province in order to begin the breeding program in Iberá. We believe that all of the region s native wildlife should be present and flourishing in order for Corrientes to become Corrientes again. The story has only just begun. We hope this newsletter will do justice to this adventure, communicating it with both rigor and passion. The journey will surely be worthy! Ignacio Jiménez Pérez Endangered Species Coordinator The Conservation Land Trust Argentina Photo: Juan Ramón Díaz Colodrero 3

4 Giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) project: Consolidating the two populations reintroduced in Iberá Key data We estimate that there are between 27 and 42 giant anteaters in the reintroduced population at Rincón del Socorro reserve We already have 16 free-ranging anteaters in San Alonso reserve We have seen 22 cubs being born in Socorro and already one in San Alonso 2014 was the best year regarding survival and reproduction on both reintroduced populations Since the last newsletter of the Giant Anteater Project, published in September of 2013, we have shared news, in brief, in the Newsletter of the Esteros. Now is a good time to summarize the state of the project, more than seven years after releasing the first animals into Iberá Nature Reserve was the project s most productive year in regard to the number of released individuals, the survival of free-ranging animals, the number of offspring produced, and the number of females to give birth inside Iberá. But, above all, it was the year in which the second Photo: Emanuel Galetto Mishky and her cub, Enea, crossing a bridge inside a small forest fragment at El Socorro. 4

5 Images of anteaters taken from trap cameras (Emi, Machetero, Formoseña with her cub Estrella, and Ivoty with Diana). reintroduced population took off in the Provincial Reserve, sited at San Alonso Reserve. Toward the end of 2013 we decided to stop releasing giant anteaters in the Socorro Reserve and to only do so at San Alonso. Nevertheless, this did not affect the growth of the population reintroduced in Socorro. During 2014 we confirmed the births of six new cubs in Socorro, although it s possible that others were born from animals without radio-harnesses or not followed regularly with camera traps. Of these six cubs, four were born from mothers that had already given birth in Iberá in previous years: Tota, Bomba, Formoseña, and Mishky. One of the best pieces of news is that, for the first time, two animals that had been part of the project since they were pups, the females Tusca and Emi, became mothers. This good news was further reinforced by the birth, at the beginning of 2015, of the first cub from yet another young female, Renata, to have been raised as a cub by us. Taking this data into account, we know that eight females have given birth in the population of Socorro, with a total of 21 confirmed cubs. The year 2014 was also the one with the lowest mortality rate for the population, with the single death of Enea, Mishky s first baby. Soon after this event, the female gave birth to her second cub which she successfully raised until the age of independency, when we were no longer able to track it. 5

6 Photo: Rafael Abuin Pancha and her first cub, born in San Alonso. Throughout these years, we have been removing radioharnesses from the anteaters at Socorro (usually after an animal has spent two winters in the wild), and currently we have only five animals wearing the devices. In order to continue monitoring the group, we began to mark the ears of the animals so as to be able to identify them in the camera traps. However, using the camera traps will not enable us to identify some of the animals, such as those without the aforementioned marks and those descended from anteaters born in the wild, which have not been handled by us. Given all of this, we start to give a large margin of error when estimating the abundancy of the population in Socorro, with minimum and maximums of 25 and 40 known individuals, respectively, for December of Despite the frustration of being unable to know precisely how many animals live in the area, we understand this is a natural outcome for a growing wild population. While the population of Socorro maintains its slow but constant growth, in San Alonso the species is recovering in record time. In 2013 four animals were released, in 2014 there were six and, so far in 2015, five have been released. One of our uncertainties was whether the anteaters would adapt to the environment of San Alonso, which is dominated by open grasslands and lacks the forested areas of Espinal typical of Socorro. The only forests of San Alonso are small islets of jungle with an area of few hectares and separated by many kilometers. We were happy to find that the released anteaters not only reacted well to the new environment but also gained weight at a pace much faster than the ones in Socorro. It seems that San Alonso s vast grasslands provide a higher abundance of ants and termites than the tree-spotted savannahs of Socorro. 6

7 As a result of this successful anteater adaptation to the area, at the beginning of March of 2015 we found that Pancha, one of the anteaters released in 2013, had given birth to a cub which, to date, remains healthy and safe. The most noticeable thing about this birth is that the female was less than three years old, the youngest mother to be recorded in the whole project. Could it be that the higher abundance of food allows for earlier births in San Alonso? Or maybe it is due to the fact that the animals we are releasing have been better fed, thanks to the cumulative experience from the previous years of hand-rearing orphan pups that are later released? (Note: 70 percent of the animals incorporated in our project are orphans whose mothers have been killed by hunters.) According to our data, the population of San Alonso currently consists of 16 anteaters, without any recorded deaths since the release of the first individuals in November of In less than two years we have anteaters flourishing in San Alonso, in contrast to the five anteaters we had in Socorro after our first two years of releases. As a closing note, in late 2014 the legislators of Corrientes declared the giant anteater a Provincial Natural Monument. Not only does this declaration imply a full endorsement to all the collective work done in recent years, it also grants the maximum level of legal protection to this species, now returning to Corrientes after decades of absence. Congratulations and thanks to all the province s legislators! 7

8 Collaborating with provincial and national authorities to recover the maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) in San Alonso Reserve Key data The maned wolf was considered as extinct in San Alonso island some decades ago An animal was seen in 2011in that area for the first time in decades Thanks to the provincial and national authorities, two female maned wolves were released in the area where they have established successfully The maned wolf is one of the most charismatic and difficult to observe animals in Iberá. This canid lives, always in low numbers, in the often-flooded tall grasslands of the region. When the technical team of the Conservation Land Trust (CLT) started working in the Iberá Reserve in 2005, Omar Rojas field worker in charge of San Alonso, where he had been for more than twenty years when it was a cattle ranch told us that this animal had disappeared from these soft hills after a large flood in So that is what we believed up Photo: Rafael Abuin Rita leaving her transportation cage in San Alonso, Iberá. 8

9 until 2011, when we obtained the first photograph of a maned wolf taken by a camera trap in San Alonso. The species had returned to the island! Or maybe it had never left. Since then, we periodically heard its barking in the area and were able to get a few more pictures. In December of 2013, members of the Department of Natural Resources of Corrientes rescued a female maned wolf in the neighborhood of Laguna Seca, in the province s capital. They quickly got in touch with our veterinarian, Gustavo Solis, for technical assistance after which they offered us the opportunity to release the animal in the Iberá Reserve. The place chosen for this was San Alonso. After undergoing a medical checkup, the maned wolf was outfitted with a radio collar and then transported by land and water toward this 10,000-hectare reserve, owned by CLT and located in the heart of the wetlands, where she was released in February of Our concerns were whether or not the animal would stay in the area, be able to adapt well to the local environment, and possibly conflict with any other member of the species already settled there. Little by little our doubts lifted, as we were able to see that the maned wolf that we named Rita is not only still alive but has stayed within the island of San Alonso, where she occupies a large home-range encompassing more than half of the reserve. As a result of this successful release, toward the end of 2014, authorities of the National Secretary of the Environment expressed interest in releasing another female maned wolf in the same reserve. It was a five- or sixyear-old female found by countrymen in August of that year on a ranch of Ramallo in the Province of Buenos Aires. The animal was wearing a dog collar, which led us to believe that she had escaped from someone s house. X-rays taken after her discovery showed signs of old shotgun injuries. Members of both the provincial and national governments were present during the translocation and release The maned wolf Rita in front of a camera trap. 9

10 of this animal. After being baptized Koé, which means sunrise in Guaraní, the female was released in a location similar to the previous one. To this day we have been able to follow this individual, which at least for now has opted to stay in southern San Alonso sharing territory (though probably at different times of the day) with Rita. The challenge facing us in the upcoming months will include continuing to locate these animals across their wide territories as well as verifying the sex of any other specimens present on the island and see if the released females give birth to their first offspring. To achieve this, we are placing new camera traps in different sections of San Alonso. We hope to see new pups in an area of Iberá where the species was considered extirpated. This short tale of the successful release of two individuals of an endangered species that might otherwise have been kept captive for the rest of their lives is a good example of what can be gained when public authorities and conservation foundations work arm in arm. Map of the hills in San Alonso showing the areas where the released maned wolves have been located. 10

11 Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus): Lights and shadows of a recovering population Key data We could not re-establish the pampas deer in San Nicolás reserve The reintroduced population of pampas deer in San Alonso has between 54 and 57 animals Due to risks related to capturing and tagging these deer, we won t be able to have a precise estimate of the overall reintroduced population in the near future We have detected 48 fawns born out of 22 translocated animals We estimate a 33% annual rate of increase in the reintroduced population, without further reintroductions Our last newsletter of the Pampas Deer Project, dated November 2012, focused on the start of a new population reintroduced to the San Nicolas Reserve and on the continuous growth of the restored population in San Alonso. What follows is a summary of the main events that have taken place since then. In October of 2012, six pampas deer were translocated from the flooded grasslands of Aguapey (outside Iberá Nature Reserve) to San Nicolas, a CLT reserve with an area of about 20,000 hectares, within Iberá Nature Reserve. In contrast to San Alonso, which is a hill-island surrounded by wetlands, San Nicolas is connected to the cattle ranches and pine plantations outside Iberá, specifically with the locality of San Miguel. At first sight, this region appears to be more than adequate for the species, as it consists of a wide grassland area. In addition, in order to anchor the deer to their release location, our park rangers carried out prescribed fires in a zone near the prerelease pen in order to generate the kind of grass regrowth favored by these animals. During the first weeks the released animals stayed in the area and everything went fine. Little by little, however, due to unknown causes (there was no known activity that could have bothered the animals), the pampas deer started dispersing away from San Nicolas, with unexpected consequences. The first animal to abandon the area was the female Rosa, who displayed exploratory behavior, ultimately entering the Parana Lagoon where she drowned. Shortly after, the male Cholo showed a similar behavior but was able to successfully cross the lagoon to join the group of deer in San Alonso on November 25. To date this male is in good health, and we suspect that he has fathered one of the offspring on the island. During the same time, the other male, Nacho, abandoned the San Nicolas Reserve in the opposite direction to settle in an unprotected forest area nearby. His dead body was found on January 4, 2013, and evidence suggested he most likely died from a gunshot. Given these events, an attempt was made to capture and translocate the female Lola, who had also settled on private fields outside the protected area. This animal was captured and successfully translocated to the acclimation pen inside San Nicolas. After seeing that the remaining animals were not returning to the area, it was decided to translocate her to San Alonso in order to avoid anything similar to Nacho s fate. The 11

12 Photo: Juan Ramón Díaz Colodrero A small group of reintroduced deer using the grasslands of San Alonso. translocation was done on January 10, but sadly she was found dead two days later. The cause seemed to be related to complications associated with the process of capture and translocation. By then, of the six deer translocated to San Nicolas, there remained only one male Cholo, who was safe in San Alonso and two females Yvy and Peque, who were gradually moving farther away from San Nicolas and the Iberá Nature Reserve, entering into cattle fields and forests where their safety could not be guaranteed. Everything was further complicated by one of the rainiest years of the last decade, which made it especially hard to reach areas where the deer had dispersed to. That was why Yvy spent months circulating through unprotected land until June of 2013, when she was captured and translocated successfully to San Alonso where she was able to integrate with the other deer reintroduced there. After all of this, the female Peque was still left, living in forested plantations situated in San Miguel and Concepcion. During the months that followed, because the area where the animal was found was inaccessible by land due to high waters accumulating during the previous months, we tracked the signal of the radio collar from the air. We found the situation especially worrisome knowing the fate of Nacho, who had died inside one of these plantations. Nevertheless, we did not want to perform a rescue operation that could not guarantee safety for the animal. There finally came a moment when, from the air, we began to receive signals from Peque s radio collar with a rhythm of beeps associated with a collar that has not been moving for more than 12 hours; what we call a mortality signal. When, on August 21, we were able to enter the plantation where the radio collar signal had come from, we found her dispersed remains together with the still-working radio collar. The animal was inside a forest of mature pine trees. Since the death occurred weeks prior, it was impossible to determine the cause, even though we suspected either gunshot or dog attack. This event was useful in highlighting the importance of areas of strict conservation for the survival of the species in the long run. 12

13 Thus, of the six animals released in San Nicolas on land that a priori seemed to have excellent conditions to restore a population of the species two remained in San Alonso and the other four died from natural or human-related causes. As a result, we decided not to make any more releases in San Nicolas and to wait until the pampas deer recolonize the area on their own from the growing population established in San Alonso, retracing the path established by the male Cholo. While all of this was taking place with the animals released in San Nicolas, the population reintroduced in 2009 on the hills of San Alonso continued to thrive. In 2013 we were able to confirm the births of 14 fawns and in 2014 another 13, although it is probable that a larger number was born. During the first months of 2015 we identified two new fawns. Due to the large amount of offspring being born on the hill of San Alonso (48 known individuals since 2010), out of which only three have individual unmistakable markings it is becoming impossible to obtain precise abundance estimates for this reintroduced population. Our experience suggests that pampas deer are extremely delicate animals to manipulate, which means that every capture implies a considerable risk for the individual. For that reason, during 2014 we decided not to capture any deer in San Alonso to mark individuals and thereby improve monitoring of the population. We restricted the captures to situations in which the gains clearly outweighed the risks, such as the cases when captured animals are translocated in order to create new populations. With all the data obtained to date, we estimate that there are somewhere between 54 and 57 pampas deer living in Photo: Juan Ramón Díaz Colodrero A small fawn born in San Alonso. 13

14 San Alonso, originating from 22 translocated individuals, although we believe more animals have yet to be identified. More importantly than these numbers is the demographic tendency of a population that, with the information we have been able to collect, shows an annual female reproductive rate of 86 percent and an annual survival rate of 90 percent. Considering that the female-to-male ratio of animals born on the island appears to be 1:1, we estimate the population to be growing at an annual rate of 33 percent; this means their numbers would be doubling every two to three years without the need of further releases! If we also take into account the fact that the swamps of Aguapey host around 1,500 deer and that there are other secure areas within and around Iberá where new populations could potentially be established, the future of the pampas deer in Corrientes appears more promising than had been predicted when the first studies were conducted in the 1990s. All the detailed information about the deer in San Alonso, San Nicolas, and Aguapey can be viewed on the project s website, where there are several publications and technical reports. 14

15 The first collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu) arrive to Corrientes Key data Collared peccaries became extinct in Corrientes during the XXth century The first group of collared peccaries has been brought to Corrientes and will be reintroduced in Iberá by Peccaries (family Tayassuidae) are wild pigs native to the American continent, differing from the suids or pigs of the Old World. In total, there are three species of peccaries in the American continent and all are present in Argentina. Of these, the collared peccary is the smallest species (weighing only 20 kilograms), the most adaptable, and the one that has the largest distribution, being found from the southern United States to the center of Argentina. Collared peccaries inhabit areas that range from semideserts to rainforest, including mountain forests, savannahs, and dry forests. They live in groups of typically 5 15 members and are much smaller than the wild boar, or Sus scrofa, one of the worst invasive species in Iberá and the rest of Corrientes. In Corrientes, collared peccaries must have been common in the three different types of forest that surround Iberá (the Chaco forest, the Espinal, and the Atlantic rainforest) but later became extinct at some point in the last century. As the French naturalist d Orbigny who possibly offers the best description of fauna in Iberá tells it: herds of wild boars or peccaries also damage the grounds of the forests, where they arrogantly reject the attacks that are targeted at them. It is possible that some collared peccaries still remain in the jungles of the northeast of the province, but the species is clearly absent at Iberá Nature Reserve. In addition to Corrientes, the species is considered extinct in Entre Rios, much of Santa Fe, the south of Cordoba, and in the southeast of Santiago del Estero, while it still inhabits some sections of Santa Fe, the central-north of Misiones, Chaco, Formosa, Tucuman, north of Santiago del Estero, east of Jujuy, Salta, southeast of Catamarca, south of La Rioja, east of San Juan, west and north of Cordoba, San Luis and northeast of Mendoza. Photo: David Diago Capturing a peccary at Horco Molle Experimental Reserve. Photo: David Diago Veterinary checkup of peccaries before their transport to Corrientes. 15

16 The collared peccary was considered for reintroduction at Iberá Nature Reserve since it is native to the area and because enough protected habitat allows for its reestablishment. This idea was officially presented to the authorities of Corrientes, who authorized the release of the first group of 10 animals in Iberá. Rincon del Socorro Reserve was chosen for this first release due to its interesting mix of forests, savannahs, and grasslands after consultation with authorities from the National Wildlife Department, who agreed on the project. With this approval, we only needed to decide where to get the animals that were going to be reintroduced. Fortunately, peccaries are quite common in zoos and animal rescue centers. One of these places was Horco Molle Experimental Reserve of the University of Tucuman, which had a group of some collared peccaries originally from the dry forests of the Chaco living in seminatural conditions within an enclosure of many hectares inside the forests of the Sierra de San Javier. Because it was a known academic institution that had already collaborated with us in the giant anteater project, and because the animals lived in almost wild conditions there, Horco Molle was considered the best possible option for source animals for our translocation project. During the last week of February the technical teams of CLT and Horco Molle met to capture, anesthetize, radio-collar, health-screen, and translocate ten peccaries (seven females and three males) from Tucuman to the quarantine facilities built especially for this purpose in the Corrientes Biological Station, which also houses the rescue center for the giant anteaters. These ten animals are currently going through the prescribed quarantine period before their impending translocation to a prerelease pen located inside the Espinal woodlands of Soccoro. We expect that by the month of April of 2015 the first collared peccaries will once again live freely in Iberá after decades of being absent in the area. From this moment a long journey begins, one of passionate learning that will encompass not only the ecology of this species but also the best practices for its reintroduction. Photo: Ignacio Jiménez Collared peccaries in the quarantine facilities built in Corrientes. 16

17 Jaguar (Panthera onca) project: Everything is ready to start on-site breeding of jaguars in Iberá Key data Iberá was the last refuge for grassland jaguars in Argentina Iberá Nature Reserve holds enough habitat to hold 100 jaguars without conflict with humans or cattle We are starting the first center aimed to breed jaguars in their own habitat so they are able to live in the wild Tobuna is our first female, which was donated by Batán Zoo in Argentina The jaguar was a common presence in the ecosystem of Iberá until the mid-twentieth century. The elderly in the area still remember hearing the stories about this animal and some of them even show with pride the trap that they used to hunt the last jaguar. Nowadays, the jaguar lives on in place names, such as Concepcion de Yaguareté Cora, in legends, or in the folk songs (for example, chamamés) sung in the province. The jaguars of Iberá must have been the last specimens that lived in open landscapes in Argentina. The barely 200 individuals now left in the whole country are all found in forest ecosystems, after becoming extinct from the vast grasslands of Argentina. Photo: Rafael Abuin Aerial view of the Experimental Jaguar Breeding Center (CECY) located in the heart of the Iberá Natural Reserve. 17

18 With the arrival of the twenty-first century, the conditions for a jaguar population in the Iberá have changed. Now the area is emerging as an important ecotourism destination, where the nearly 600,000 hectares held under strict conservation status will enable this large feline to flourish without conflicts between jaguars and humans or their cattle. Once considered nothing but a problem for its neighbors, the jaguar is fast becoming an opportunity for local development as a tourist attraction. It is within this context that CLT s Iberá Rewilding Project has always considered the possibility of restoring the presence of the tigre criollo in the great Iberá Reserve. The complexity of reintroducing a large carnivore, however, requires a long process of planning and acquiring approval from designated authorities. Today, after more than four years of visiting species restoration projects in other countries like Brazil, South Africa, Spain, and India; consulting with national and international experts; and dealing with paperwork for the authorities of both Corrientes and Argentina, we can say that we are ready to start the first phase of a process destined to bring back the jaguar to Iberá. In 2013 the authorities of Corrientes approved the Jaguar Project: breeding, education and tourism in the Iberá Nature Reserve. The objective of this effort is to generate practical knowledge in order to be able to breed jaguars under controlled conditions in a remote area of Iberá (such as San Alonso Reserve), which would enable them to live in the wild without depending on or becoming attached to humans. Supporters of the project also look forward to promoting the figure of this emblematic carnivore among the neighbors and visitors of Iberá. Toward the end of 2014 the authorities of the National Secretary of the Environment approved the Jaguar Experimental Breeding Center (Centro Experimental de Cría de Yaguaretés, or CECY), which consists of four enclosures Photo: Juan Ramón Díaz Colodrero Iberá gauchos and CLT park rangers moving construction materials using oxen to transverse through flooded areas. 18

19 of 1,200 square meters each for breeders, two enclosures of 1.5 hectares each that include grasslands and forest for mothers and their offspring, and a large enclosure of 25 hectares where juvenile jaguars can hone their hunting abilities. The detailed work plan of the CECY can be found at our website. Based on the results of this first phase, the authorities will decide if the animals born in the CECY could be released in Iberá or other protected areas. Throughout 2013 and 2014, while the required authorizations were being processed, a team of locals began to build the breeding center facilities in a remote area and under the difficult conditions brought by the two rainiest years of the last decade. For those who want to get an idea of how this work was done we recommend watching the video done by one of our staff. While this was taking place, new quarantine facilities, specially designed for these felids, were being built. Once all of these steps were completed, we were technically and legally ready to bring the first of jaguars intended for breeding coming from zoos that would allow us to start learning how to raise jaguars that would be able to live in the wild. On April 7 we proceeded to translocate the first specimen toward the breeding project. This was Tobuna, a female generously donated by the Batan Zoo, situated near the city of Mar del Plata. Tobuna was especially chosen for being the last female jaguar to have bred in captivity in Argentina. The translocation happened without any setbacks and, as these lines are being written, the jaguar is beginning the quarantine period needed to guarantee that the female does not introduce any pathogens into either the breeding facilities or the Iberá ecosystem. For us, the arrival of this animal represents a very special moment, capping the years of enquiries, meetings, trips, construction, and paperwork leading toward the start of handling jaguars. This is the first step of many in a long journey that will involve lots of hard work and learning until we can refine the techniques that will allow us to breed jaguars that can live safely in the wild. At the end of this journey, we hope that the people from Corrientes and all of Argentina will feel proud that South America s largest predator is no longer a simple memory in the folklore and the landscape of Iberá. Photo: Karina Spørring Tobuna during her first day at the jaguar quarantine. 19

20 The people behind the return of the fauna Personal profile: Gustavo Solís, veterinarian Gustavo Solis was born in 1969 and grew up with his family in the countryside of the province of Chaco. There, together with his siblings, he spent the days playing in the woods and observing the local fauna. This early experience imbued in him what would be his two great vocations: cattle farming and wildlife. Later, the family moved to the city of Corrientes where Gustavo completed his veterinary degree. Even though his studies pushed clearly toward the world of agriculture and livestock production, the young Gustavo could not shake his love for wildlife. When he began working at the Department of Natural Resources in Corrientes, it only furthered his passion for wildlife issues, and he went on to work at the Sáenz Peña Zoo in the Chaco and the Ezeiza Zoo in Buenos Aires. Throughout the 1990s Gustavo gradually became the reference wildlife veterinarian in northern Argentina. Those were years of participating in conservation workshops, scientific meetings, environmental consultancies, collaborations with the National Parks Authority and Fundacion Vida Silvestre, and, above all, responding quickly when called upon by the national and provincial authorities of fauna for assistance in rescuing, confiscating, or rehabilitating wildlife. His work also led to the creation of the Wildlife Rescue Association, which served as a training venue for young people interested in getting experience working with wild animals but unable to obtain it from their universities. In those years Gustavo developed a true passion for one of the rarest animals in the region: the tatu carreta or giant armadillo. When, in 2005, CLT began to assemble a technical team to manage the Iberá Project, it was almost a given that Gustavo would join and contribute his experience and passion to the new group. Since then he has been in charge of coordinating the project s veterinary needs and, above all, the relationships with wildlife authorities of Corrientes, other provinces, and the nation. His social skills and knowledge of the people of the great Argentine Chaco have been key to convincing the locals that they should donate any anteater cubs they had in their homes so they would be released someday in Iberá. His experience as a veterinarian, along with his ability as a marksman and as coordinator of wildlife-capture teams, has been decisive for the success of the deer translocation campaigns. Gustavo is the person with the most experience in the country regarding these types of captures. But, above all, his credibility and his conciliatory spirit have been crucial to moving forward with administrative proceedings to obtain permits, which require a lot of patience and listening skills. In addition to his work with wildlife, Gustavo manages a ranch where he can put into practice his vocation for high-quality cattle ranching and where, when he arrives home, he enjoys following the news of Lionel Messi, his favorite soccer player, and Boca Juniors, his beloved soccer club. 20

21 Publicaciones Early last year the book Giant Anteater: A Homecoming to Iberá was published. The book explains in a visual way the different steps of the reintroduction process of this mammal in the Iberá Reserve, with images supported by text written by individuals who worked on each step of the process. These are complemented by essays written by scientists such as John Terborgh and Mario Di Bitteti or naturalists like Claudio Bertonatti who use the case of the giant anteater to reflect upon the importance of rewilding or restoring extirpated wildlife. The book can be downloaded in English, free of charge, from the Iberá Project s website. To obtain a printed copy, please contact Ignacio Jiménez (i_jimenez_perez@yahoo.es). Other publications: Di Blanco, Y. E., I. Jiménez Pérez, P. and K. Díaz, Cinco años de radiomarcaje de osos hormigueros: mejoras implementadas y lecciones aprendidas, Edentata 13 (Spring 2012): Caruso, F. and P. I. Jiménez, Tourism, local pride and attitudes towards the reintroduction of a large predator: the case of the Jaguar in Corrientes, Argentina, Endangered Species Research 21 (2013): View and download book Giant Anteater A Homecoming to Iberá View and download book Oso Hormiguero Regreso al Monte Correntino 21

22 Acknowledgements None of the stories told here would exist if it were not for the active collaboration of dozens of institutions and individuals. We want to thank everyone for their support, even though the following list may not be complete. During the last nine years the Government of Corrientes has been constant in their support while also wanting Iberá to return to being Iberá. Without their support and dedication the Program of Rewilding in Iberá would not exist, and we would not be appreciating the amazing restoring of the wild fauna of the Reserve. The National Wildlife Authority has played a key part in the rigorous analysis that approved the CECY, which has made possible the projects related to other species and the selection of San Alonso for the second liberation of the female maned wolf. The local governments of Santiago del Estero, Salta, and Formosa have authorized the rescue of orphaned anteaters for their future reintroduction in Iberá. The Horco Molle Experimental Station of Tucuman University set the base for the return of the collared peccary with the donation of 10 individuals. The Argentinean companies Techint and Acindar donated large amounts of materials to build the Jaguar breeding center. The Bromley Charitable Trust has funded most of the Jaguar Program for the last years. This project has also received funds from the Barcelona, Chester, Artis, and Parc des Felins zoos. The National Geographic Society granted funds to purchase the vehicle used at the CECY. Photo: Juan Ramón Díaz Colodrero Text: Ignacio Jiménez Translation: N. Volpe English revision: M.E. Jacobsen & T. Butler Design: Andrés Stubelt 22