Funding for Polish-Venezuelan study of jaguar population

According to the members of the Mammal Research Institute research team, the money will not be sufficient to cover all costs of the project.

The project is implemented since 2009 in cooperation with the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas - IVIC), also involved financially in the project. Until now, scientists have completed four expeditions, for example to the Periha mountains near the border with Colombia. Another expedition is planned in November, and its destination is the Orinoco River delta.

Sites selected for expeditions must meet several conditions. "First of all, there must be evidence that there are jaguars; the sites must also represent various environments and be inhabited by various groups of animals" - added Schmidt.

The idea of research was born in during the Polish group leader Prof. Włodzimierz Jędrzejewski’s from Mammal Research Institute PAS stay in Venezuela, at the tropical ecology course for students from both countries. The course was organized by the Jagiellonian University and IVIC in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.

Scientists from Białowieża are experts, among others, in the ecology of predatory mammals. They study animals such as wolves and lynx that live in the Białowieża Forest. With regard to jaguars they want to determine whether the genetic variation in jaguar populations in South America is associated with what these wild cats hunt. Jaguars live there in various environments and hunt both smaller animals (such as aguti, peccaries, turtles) and large ones (tapirs, cattle).