Without healthy prey populations, jaguars will switch to a diet of domestic livestock such as cows and sheep, leading to persecution by ranchers and irreversible changes to the local food web. Alexine Keuroghlian (local scientist from University of Nevada, Reno) is investigating the ecology of the principal prey of jaguars, white-lipped and collared peccaries, in an effort to monitor the health of the Pantanal ecosystem. Your efforts helping her uncover the habits and habitat needs of peccaries of the Pantanal will help guide future management and conservation strategies for the region.

The objectives of Alexine’s research are as follows:

• To provide population estimates of peccaries and feral pigs and to investigate how feral pigs interfere with peccary foraging success.

• To measure the seasonal patterns of resource use and availability by peccaries and feral pigs. This is important because of the dramatic environmental changes that occur during the annual flood cycle in the Pantanal.

• To document the ecological role of peccaries as seed dispersers and predators of keystone fruits, and the impact of these activities on the biodiversity of the region.

  1. What do you think is the most important of the above objectives and why?

Areas close to streams are used heavily by peccaries and Alexine would also like to find out how these riparian[look this word up at MiriamWebster.com] areas are impacted by peccary use.

You will help Alexine and her research by doing the following:

*Using radio telemetry (tracking) to plot the movements (ranging patterns) of "tagged" peccaries
*Baiting and trapping peccaries and taking vital measurements
*Plotting the ranging of peccaries by overlaying telemetry data over vegetation/habitat maps
*Carrying out direct observation of peccaries
*Collecting and analyzing faecal [look this word up at MiriamWebster.com] samples
*Conducting fruit experiments
*Carrying out a fruit census
*Data collection and analysis on fruit foraging

Mrs. Coleman's team took video of their work with peccary. Watch a two peccary being released after a successful capture and tag.

Setting the trap for peccary

Measuring a peccary

Weighing a peccary

2. What is the main diet of the peccary?

http://www.montereybay.com/creagrus/peccaries.html

3. What are the main predators of the peccary?

http://www.desertusa.com/magnov97/nov_pap/du_collpecc.html

4. What do peccaries always stay close to?

5. Why might you smell a peccary before you see it?

6. How many peccaries usually travel together?

7. Watch the release movie. What is the funny sound that the peccaries are making and why do they do it?

 

Answer each question.

Send your answers to the teacher, directions will be provided in class. Be sure to type out your answers on a WORD document first, just in case your message becomes erased. You can copy it from there right into the email and send directly to your email to send.