Regional News Southeast

D'AGOSTINO, R.L.; NABTE, M.J.; UDRIZAR SAUTHIER, D.E.

The Wild Felid Monitor

Wild Felid and Management Association

Año: 2015 vol. 8

R. D’Agostino, M. Nabte, and D. Udrizar Sauthier are studying the carnivores of the Wildlife Reserve San Pablo de Valdés(WRSPV; 42°36’S; 64°10’W), including three native felids: puma (Puma concolor),geoffroy’s cat (Leopardus geoffroyi) and pampas cat (Leopardus colocolo). This reserve en compasses 7,360 hectares and was a ranch from 1918-2005, supporting about 3500 sheep. In 2005 it was bought by the Argentina Wildlife Foundation and converted into a wildlife reserve, removing the internal fences and livestock. These workers plan to compare the carnivore assemblage of the WRSPV of the last 3500 years of the Holocene with the current assemblage, hoping to infer changes in richness and abundance and elucidate environmental or anthropic causes of change. They also are 1) studying habitat use and behavior in shrub steppes,grasslands, and dwarf shrub steppes; and 2)implementing seasonal monitoring, using line-transects and track counts. Additionally, they plan to 1) analyze diet composition using fecal analysis and compare results with prey availability based on live capture traps and 2) compare carnivore assemblages of the WSRPV with surrounding cattleranches, developing sustainable management guidelines to minimize conflicts between ranchers and carnivores.