As gold fever grips Guyana,
a small country in South America, people are coming more and more into
contact with one of the most secretive of the big cats: The jaguar.
Since the 2008 global recession, gold mining in the heavily forested
nation has skyrocketed, with miners and loggers setting up camp in
remote forests that are already home to jaguars, according to University
of Texas-Dallas geographer Anthony Cummings.
Stories of such encounters piqued the interest of Cummings, a native Guyanese, who set out to investigate how gold mining, logging, and hunting are affecting populations of three wild cat species—the ocelot, puma, and jaguar.
And since he was starting from scratch, Cummings had to go to the source.So in December 2014, Cummings went to Guyana and conducted more than 85 interviews with people involved in the new mining or logging operations. He asked them when jaguars have been killed in the past decade, and also if the big cats had killed or injured people. (Learn more about National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative.)
We talked to Cummings about his preliminary findings, which he
presented in August at the International Congress for Conservation
Biology in Montpellier, France.
What did your results show, and did they surprise you?
Over the past decade, upward of 90 jaguars have been killed in
Guyana—that’s what my data suggested talking to stakeholders,
[including] miners, loggers, and hunters. One gold miner was killed by
jaguar, and two persons were injured by a puma or a jaguar. These events
amplify the level of fear of big cats among the Guyanese population.
Around 65 percent of the people I spoke with suggested they had some
fear of big cats.
Their reaction is, 'If I see a jaguar or puma and I have access to a gun, I'm going to kill it.' This is one of my biggest concerns—how to educate people to react when they see a big cat, and what measures they can put in place to keep cats away from their homes, other places of dwelling and livestock. (See "Pictures: Jaguars Spotted on Colombian Plantation—A First.")
Their reaction is, 'If I see a jaguar or puma and I have access to a gun, I'm going to kill it.' This is one of my biggest concerns—how to educate people to react when they see a big cat, and what measures they can put in place to keep cats away from their homes, other places of dwelling and livestock. (See "Pictures: Jaguars Spotted on Colombian Plantation—A First.")
For the second question of where incidents are being reported, I
found a stronger [pattern] of big cat killings around areas that
livestock, primarily cattle, are reared. That’s not surprising, it’s
very similar to what we see throughout Latin America. More surprising is
what I saw for big cat killings in gold mining areas—it's a much more
dispersed pattern across the landscape. Given the nature of Guyana with
its highly forested landscape, reaching gold miners for conflict
resolution and educational purposes becomes a lot more challenging and
this is what I want to address going forward.
What is gold mining like in Guyana, and how does it impact jaguars?
When the global economy crashed between 2007 and 2008, what happened
on the other side of the coin is the price for gold started to go
through the roof. All precious metals tend to do well when there’s an
economic crisis. The price of gold almost increased
substantially. Because of the higher demand for land for gold mining,
the chances of being able to have a profit has substantially
increased—the scale of gold mining has gone upward and in fact gold
mining is the highest driver of deforestation in Guyana. As that has
happened,more people have had encounters with jaguars.
There are three levels of gold mining in Guyana: Small scale that is
very manual labor intensive—taking an axe and pick, going into the
forest and riverbed to seeing what gold can be found—medium scale, and
large scale, in which larger companies with more capital investment and
equipment essentially removes vegetation and all overburden to access
the gold below.
The small and medium scale miners gold miners take dogs and poultry
into the forest with them as they are often moving into terrain where
food supply can be problematic. Showing up with a dog introduces a new
dynamic for a jaguar who essentially says, 'Lunch has shown up.' It’s a
challenge: the gold miner needs the dog for protection and hunting
services because he’s so far from a grocery or town, but he’s
introducing this easy target for the big cat. We're just beginning to
map all these variables and working through solutions.
I want to underscore the point that gold miners recognize that they
can do more for the environment. All of the miners I spoke with are
extremely enthusiastic to work on ways to reduce big cat interactions.
Their attitude is 'If we could do better we would do better.' This is
therefore one of my biggest concerns: How to keep them engaged in
conservation while maintaining their high sense of pride in their craft.
(See National Geographic's big cat pictures.)
I was surprised to hear that you discovered there's apparently a
demand for jaguar meat and parts. Is that something that could be a
concern?
Absolutely, it remains the biggest surprises I've had. [According to
my independently verified interviews], recent immigrants to Guyana [and
also Guyanese] have been eating big cat meat. I was born and raised in
Guyana, I have never heard of anyone eating cat meat. My initial
reaction was, 'You guys are messing with me.'
Is the jaguar dwindling in Guyana due to human activity?
There is some concern, but I think it extends to all wildlife on the
whole. The simple answer though, is that we need to have a better sense
of the current population. Now that I have a sense of the conflict side,
we need to attempt to answer the question of how many jaguars we have
in Guyana and what patterns are associated with their distribution
across the landscape. I've never seen a big cat live in the forest of
Guyana, and I've been in the forest a lot. (See "'Indomitable' Jaguars May Have Lessons in Survival for Us.")
Big Cat Week is this week. What do you want our readers to know about your work with jaguars in Guyana?
The most important thing I want readers to understand, especially the
global audience, is that their actions and decisions have an impact on
biodiversity and wildlife in places they don’t necessarily think about.
The global economic crash we think of as a North American problem, but
it translates down to the ground in little towns across the world.
The second big thing is people are not necessarily always against
conservation—in fact they’re ready to embrace conservation. But we need
to figure out ways to work with them, understanding they have their own
livelihood challenges. And we've got to figure out how to take care of
their needs if they’re going to help us to protect and conserve
wildlife.
No comments:
Post a Comment