Pumas, Peccaries, and Parrots in Bolivia

Sharon L. Deem
MAY 2 - 17, 2002

May 4

I arrived in Bolivia this morning, landing in La Paz at the world's highest airport, at approximately 11,000 feet, where I was met by Dr. Lucho Pacheco.  During my "short" travels to get here I spent an extra 24 hours in Miami after 3 ½ hours on LaGuardia's runway put me behind and I missed my connecting flight down to Bolivia.  Lucho and I have plans to work at two field sites in his country; the clouded forest in Cotapata National Park and the altiplano region in the Sajama National Park.   My last trip to work with Lucho in this region was in March 2000 when we worked together on a small carnivore study.  During those two weeks in the park, we captured a tayra and oncilla, a small spotted cat, which both received radio-collars and have been monitored ever since. (See 2000 Bolivia Report.)  The capture of the oncilla was the first documented sighting of this species in Bolivia and the find has now been published in the scientific literature.  This time I returned to work with Lucho on bigger carnivores, pumas, and other species (peccaries, parrots, agoutis, pacarana, paca, and coatimundis) considered "pest" by some of the local people due to livestock predation (pumas) and crop raiding (other animals).  On this trip, I will help Dr. Pacheco with the capture and immobilization of the animals we can catch during my stay so that he can place a telemetry device for long-term monitoring of their home ranges.  Additionally, I  will collect biomaterials to determine the health status of all individuals we immobilize. 

After my extra 24 hours in Miami, it was an uneventful flight to La Paz and I arrived at 6 AM this morning.  The next 14 hours were spent getting from La Paz to Cotapata.  The day included hours of logistical arrangements in La Paz, and car travel through the Andes to the small town of Corioco for last minute preps and then more driving to the "edge of the park".  The last 2 hours we walked in the dark from the small Aymara village of Chairo up to our base camp.  Now before sleep I realize I am surrounded by clouded forest on the western side of Bolivia after 54 hours of travel from my home in Bronx, New York.  Work "begins" tomorrow.

Thursday May 9

This morning we captured a coatimundi in one of the 11 tomahawk traps we have set around the unfenced agricultural plots.  These traps are a safe and humane method for capturing small mammals.  Our day started at 4:30 AM so that we could reach one of our peccary blinds before the sun came up.  Unfortunately, we awoke to rain but decided to sit the hours in the blind in case the peccaries were out and about this morning.  Dinesio, the local hunter, and I set up at our position in the blind at 5:45 AM.  By 7:30 I was soaked and felt the wait was doing neither of us any good as the bait we had placed out 48 hours prior had not been touched and with the present miserable weather I figured no peccary "in its right mind" would venture out for the small amount of corn we had placed to entice it near us.  Hungry and tired we headed back to camp.  On the walk back to get our first cup of coffee and warm clothes, we checked the traps we had set for the small mammals.  I don't think any of us were really able to grasp the fact that a young, male coati was looking out at us as we looked in at him.  So at 8:00 AM our day began again.  The next two hours were uneventful as Rodolfo Nallar, a Bolivian veterinarian who is trying to become involved in conservation in his country, and I immobilized the animal, monitored anesthesia, collected biomaterials and allowed Lucho to apply the radiocollar.  A success.  Walking back to base camp now closer to mid-day, the catch was a much needed pick me up for the team.  Until this morning, we had only one animal from the list of animals we had hoped to collar.  On Tuesday, a plum-crowned parrot had been successfully collared and released.  For the past two days we had checked its location, via telemetry, in the valley in the morning and evenings.  Cold, wet, and hungry our second animal was now added to the list and was much appreciated by the team. 

Monday May 15

Lucho, Rodolpho and I arrived in Sajama National Park yesterday along with two young Bolivian biology students to begin our work on the puma study.  Sajama National Park borders Chile and has the highest peak in the country (at 6,542 m).  Our sleeping quarters for this leg of the trip are in the town of Sajama with roughly 80 families and located at the base of Sajama Mountain.  The weather has lingered around freezing, with strong gust of wind since our arrival yesterday morning, and it periodically has been snowing.  We drove the 5 hours from La Paz to Sajama on one of the few paved roads in the country as the route is a thorough way for travel between Bolivia and Chile, the only sea port for Bolivia trade.  The ride itself went smoothly except that I had managed to pick up Salmonella during our travels from Cotapata to Sajama.  The bottom line of that little surprise was that fluids were quickly exiting my body from any means possible.  Having arrived in Sajama late morning, we immediately had a 3 hour meeting with 30 of the local Aymara people to discuss our study plans.  I spent most of the afternoon in bed wondering if I would one day return to the US!  But, as bodies often do, mine healed.  So today was spent on a few mountains in our pursuit to find a puma to place a radio-collar on.  After two hours of walking and looking for tracks, Lucho spotted a puma on a far ridge and the chase began.  We spent 6 hours on its track and twice I sighted the animal.  Once I was about 40 m away and out of darting range and the second time at 5 m away it was moving like lightning and then instantly "disappeared" into the rocky ledge.  Unfortunately, we did not see any other pumas, or fresh tracks, for the remainder of the week.  However, all members of the team were pleased to confirm that pumas can be tracked even in this rough terrain. With more people and appropriately trained dogs (our one dog seemed to loose the tracks more than I which is not saying a lot for the dog), and possibly with the use of foot-hold snares, pumas can be captured for the telemetry part of this on-going study on a subsequent trip. 

Thursday May 16

Today I was in La Paz after returning from Sajama.  Although unsuccessful in capturing either of the two pumas for which we have a radio-collar, our meetings with the local people made it apparent that they have an interest in understanding the ecology of the puma and working with us.  We also set transects for studying puma density, and we now know that pumas are indeed present and with the right people and dogs, can be captured for study.  This work will be instrumental, along with studies that Dr. Pacheco will lead on llama predation, for understanding the human-domestic animal (llama)-wildlife (puma) interface in the region.

Most of my morning was spent in the WCS office, re-packing supplies and leaving most of them in country for future FVP work, sorting the samples I had collected from the parrot, coatimundi, and one local domestic dog I found walking in the forest of Cotapata.  The rest of the day I was busy getting rid of "hat head" from my time in Sajama and rehydrating the old bod.  Tomorrow I head back to NYC on the 6 AM flight.  Let's hope the trip home is with fewer layovers than the trip to get here.

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