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We spent a year photographing the animal crop raiders of the Amazon – here are the results

<span class="caption">Ocelot of trouble.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Ocelot of trouble. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

Rural communities in the Amazon rainforest live alongside an incredibly diverse set of animals. When some of those animals damage and eat farmers’ crops (“crop-raiding”), it creates a challenge for conservationists, who need to understand the lives of the people who coexist with that wildlife.

<span class="caption">Our home for a year.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Our home for a year. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

My colleagues and I recently spent a year in the Médio Juruá region of Amazonas, Brazil, using motion-activated camera traps to take photos of the many animals that live on or near Amazonian farms. Along with interviews of farmers, this enabled us to study which animals cause the most crop damage, how this affects the livelihoods of rural Amazonians and how these communities respond to crop raiders. Our hope was to understand how this issue might affect attempts to preserve wildlife and to offer support to local farmers if they wanted it.

<span class="caption">Canoeing the Amazon.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Canoeing the Amazon. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

The Médio Juruá region is a vast area of staggeringly biodiverse lowland tropical forest inhabited by river-dwelling communities, who descend from a mix of indigenous Amerindians, European colonists and former slaves from Africa. Our research team (comprising myself, my colleague Professor Carlos Peres, and Hugo Costa from the State University of Santa Cruz) travelled using small boats and dug-out canoes along the sinuous waterways and through the flooded forests. The region experiences a massive ten metre-high annual flood, which has wide-ranging impacts on the local ecosystems and the livelihoods of the human inhabitants.

<span class="caption">Welcoming hosts.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Welcoming hosts. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

In the year we spent living and working with the communities of the Juruá, we were fortunate enough to participate in many aspects of life, including learning to harvest the fruit of the acai palm. Many Juruá communities are the descendants of rubber tappers (seringueiros) who were drawn to this region during the rubber boom of the late 1800s. Many still depend on the natural resources of the forest and river for their livelihoods. The incredibly hospitable communities of the region frequently hosted and fed us as we travelled.

<span class="caption">Preparing manioc.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Preparing manioc. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

Most of the carbohydrates in rural Amazonian diets come from manioc (also known as yucca or cassava). This tough plant grows well on infertile tropical soils and has powerful chemical defences which make it pest-resistant. Farmers grow manioc using so-called “slash-and-burn” agriculture in fields called “roçados”, which are created by burning down a section of forest. They peel, grind, soak, drain and toast the manioc to remove the toxic cyanide which protects the plant from pests. The result of this process is delicious coarse flour called “farinha”, which is commonly eaten with fish soup.

<span class="caption">The large rodent crop-raiding agouti.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
The large rodent crop-raiding agouti. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

Despite high levels of toxins in raw manioc, some wild animals such as large rodents, deer and pig-like peccaries are able to eat it. These crop raiders can have devastating impacts on human livelihoods, destroying an average of around 8% of each farmer’s crop each year. Farmers estimated that if they did not protect their crops, their losses would be roughly ten times higher. In other parts of the world, large herbivore crop raiders such as African and Asian elephants also endanger the lives of farmers.

<span class="caption">Manioc farmer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Manioc farmer. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

Of course, these wild and often endangered species are merely trying to survive in an increasingly human-modified landscape. Poor farmers sometimes resort to killing crop raiders to protect their lives and livelihoods and can end up resenting the conservation organisations who want to protect these species.

<span class="caption">Setting a trap.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Setting a trap. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

To study crop raiding, we set up 132 camera traps in areas next to local roçados, helped by more than 45 people living in the nearby communities.

<span class="caption">Capuchin monkey.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Capuchin monkey. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

We captured more than 60,000 photographs and detected over 30 species. We detected everything from fearsome predators such as pumas, to secretive nocturnal giant armadillos, to birds of prey and even primates such as capuchin monkeys.

<span class="caption">Giant anteater.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Giant anteater. Mark Abrahams, Author provided
<span class="caption">Juvenile ornate hawk eagle.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Juvenile ornate hawk eagle. Mark Abrahams, Author provided
<span class="caption">Cougar.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Cougar. Mark Abrahams, Author provided
<span class="caption">Southern Amazon red squirrel.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Southern Amazon red squirrel. Mark Abrahams, Author provided
<span class="caption">Brazilian tapir.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Brazilian tapir. Mark Abrahams, Author provided
<span class="caption">Jaguar at night.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Jaguar at night. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

One of the most feared predators in the area is the jaguar, locally known as “onça-pintada”. We were fortunate to detect this species in several locations. Somewhat unnervingly, we occasionally saw their large fresh prints on the trail as we returned to the community, indicating that we had unwittingly been followed.

<span class="caption">On the trail.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
On the trail. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

Many local residents assured us that this species is “very cunning. They see us, but we don’t see them”. We were also told a local legend that when a jaguar follows in the tracks of a human, it will sniff their tracks to decide whether or not to attack. We can only presume that we smelled so bad at that point that even our footprints were unappealing.

<span class="caption">Red-billed cuckoo.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Red-billed cuckoo. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

In only one location, our cameras detected a rare red-billed ground cuckoo. This was an unexpected treat. Our colleagues were among the first to photograph this elusive species when they worked along the Xerua river a few years ago.

<span class="caption">Razor-billed curassow.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Razor-billed curassow. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

Some species seemed to rather enjoy the limelight, while others took exception to being monitored. Razor-billed curassows frequently paraded themselves in front of the cameras, whereas a short-eared dog took it upon himself to tear a camera from the tree.

<span class="caption">P.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
P. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

Spending long periods hiking through tropical forests surrounded by an exuberance of living things does come with certain drawbacks. For one thing, there is a bewildering array of tiny lifeforms for whom humans are mere prey. The foot sores in this image are caused by a bacterial infection known locally as “hoi hoi”.

<span class="caption">Collared peccary.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Collared peccary. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

We also conducted 157 interviews with local people, who overwhelmingly identified five species as the most burdensome crop raiders. These were, in order of importance, the large rodent agouti, collared peccary, paca (another large rodent), red brocket deer and, to a lesser degree, the spiny rat.

<span class="caption">Red brocket deer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Red brocket deer. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

These species were some of the most frequently detected by our camera traps. They were also among the most heavily hunted species. None of these crop raiders are considered highly endangered (though the International Union for the Conservation of Nature doesn’t have enough data on red brocket deer to classify them). Other studies have also found that these species can tolerate a moderate level of being hunted for food.

<span class="caption">A hunted peccary.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
A hunted peccary. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

We were encouraged to find that, despite the costs of crop-raiding to rural Amazonian communities, it did not seem to constitute the bitter “human-wildlife conflict” that other researchers have identified. In fact, because the most damaging crop-raiding species are fairly common, crop protection methods including hunting may not be a major threat to wildlife in this region.

<span class="caption">Working together.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hugo Costa</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
Working together. Hugo Costa, Author provided

Rural tropical communities are often encouraged by people from other countries to conserve their biodiverse surroundings and are criticised for hunting that helps them survive. We hope that our study has shed some light on the challenges faced by Amazonian communities who attempt to coexist with wildlife. They could use our results as the basis of a plan to manage the species that they hunt, just as they have implemented plans for sustainable rubber tapping and fishing in partnership with international organisations.

<span class="caption">The Amazon at sunset.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Abrahams</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
The Amazon at sunset. Mark Abrahams, Author provided

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation
The Conversation

Mark Abrahams is a member of The Médio Juruá Project. He received funding from the University of East Anglia, The Explorer's Club and Idea Wild.