Thursday, March 24, 2011

Peccary Parade

Week 9 saw the implementation of camera traps on the new trail that has been opened this phase. João took a team of ‘jag cams’ to the site near ‘Kingfisher Creek’ to install the cameras on the trail that has seen a host of animal activity in the recent weeks. So after leaving the cameras in place for around 10 days it was with great anticipation that we returned the traps to base. Many volunteers have fallen in love with this new trail (name still under debate) as it feels undisturbed and it has some wonderful mud areas to see tracks.


So at base we had a look at the pictures. João had been testing new settings so that they were more sensitive. And so they seem with over 1000 photos taken by just one of the cameras in just those few days! The results were great with 6 different mammal species recorded and a bird using that same spot. We caught evidence of a 4 Eyed Opossum, Common Opossum, Agouti, Paca, Red Brocket Deer, Great Curassow and White-lipped Peccary. Unfortunately no Jaguar on this occasion but we are still recording their activity on the cameras. Of late this has been blurry passing images but as the turtles are starting to come to the beach, we hope that a few dead turtles will provide ‘bait’ for some more potential sites!

The highlight of this camera trap site though has to be the peccary appearance in the photos. They produced a great sequence of shots as they came down the trail, first a few eyes, then some more as they gradually appeared. Although it was great to see so many species on camera, possibly the most that we have generated in one sitting ever!





Species List
Common Gray Four-Eyed Opossum – Philander opossum
Common Opossum – Didelphis marsupialis
Agouti – Dasyprocta punctata
Paca – Agouti paca
Red Brocket Deer – Mazama Americana
Great Curassow – Crax rubra
White-lipped Peccary – Tayassu pecari


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1 comments:

Dom G said...

Great photos of the demon-eyed peccaries! I'm guessing the 4 eyed opossum doesn't actually have 4 eyes though?