Vizcacha in Argentina

During the third year of the FVP’s Wildlife Health Fund, a re-grant program designed to promote professional development for foreign wildlife veterinarians, the FVP was able to sponsor several projects, including two studies on wildlife-livestock disease interactions in Argentina. This report comes from the arid Chaco (dry temperate forest) region in Argentina, where local veterinarian Dr. Hebe Ferreyra is evaluating possible disease-related causes for recent localized extinctions of the vizcacha, a large nocturnal rodent (Lagostomus maximus).

Field work was conducted between September 28th and October 12th in La Rioja Province, Argentina. Six vizcacha were sampled for thorough health studies, including  exposure  to  diseases,  parasites, and baseline information. The vizcacha field team included students fromthe vet school in Tandil (UNICEN), Joaquin de Estrada and Cecilia Redolatti,  local veterinarians Marcelo Romano, Gustavo Aranguren, Tomas Vera, and Andrea Sissa, and WCS Field Veterinarian Marcela Uhart. 

Corral traps baited with oats were placed near vizcacha burrows. A trapping team and a support team worked jointly every night for 2 weeks to monitor the traps. When vizcacha were successfully captured in the pen, they were restrained in burlap sacs and then anesthetized for sample collection. Because all captures had to be done at night, visibility was the team’s main challenge. Every day the trapping and lighting systems had to be modified. The keys to success included red lights placed far from the traps in the surrounding forest and the aid of a nocturnal laser instrument provided by the local army. Even though progress  was  slow  in   this  first  trapping attempt, the experience gained has allowed Dr. Ferreyra to improve the methods, and she hopes for a higher capture success during the field season next austral fall (April 2003).

Vizcacha used to range throughout most of Argentina, but due to their communal burrowing habits, farmers regard them as nuisances. With government support and a law that declares them as  “agricultural pests,” vizcacha have been exterminated from vast areas where they once thrived. They are currently threatened in the pampas, where most of the land is used for agriculture. They survive in low densities in arid and semi-arid areas where impoverished local communities occasionally hunt them for meat. However, recent localized extinctions, some of them within protected areas and national parks, have triggered new questions about the causes behind further vizcacha population declines.      Dr. Ferreyra’s work intends to shed some light on these unanswered questions by exploring possible disease problems that could be affecting the health of vizcacha communities. Because goats share most of the remaining habitat where vizcacha survive, this project also aims at evaluating diseases present in goats that could jeopardize vizcacha conservation. The results of this study will provide valuable information for wildlife authorities responsible for future management and conservation strategies for this charismatic species. 

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