What's happening with the capuchin project?

In my post “Why the Radio Silence?” I wrote that the capuchin research at Para La Tierra was continuing despite losing Laguna Blanca. PLT is collaborating with ProCosara and I would like to share a bit more about this great organisation and what we want to achieve through this collaboration.

Passionate residents and conservationists who were concerned about the rapid destruction of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest founded ProCosara back in 1997. The main goal of the organisation is the protection and conservation of San Rafael “National Park”. San Rafael is an incredible place and is considered by WWF as one of the 200 most important biological regions on earth. It is located in the departments of Itapúa and Caazapa. Currently San Rafael is the largest remaining tract of Atlantic Forest left in Paraguay (73,000ha) but it is privately owned and split into more than 60 different properties. Even though the area is designated to become a national park the reality is that the Paraguayan Government have never actually been able to purchase the land, so it has no formal protection.

River crossing in Urutau Trail (Photo: Josh Mays)

The lake at Nueva Gambach (Photo:Josh Mays)

ProCosara works to protect the forest through monitoring (both with a small aeroplane and with forest guards patrolling on the ground), land purchase and reforestation programs (in conjunction with WWF) and through education and promotion of sustainable land use practices in local communities. 

The ProCosara forest guards (Claudio & Victor) during a competition with the blowgun. (Photo: Margherita Rinaldi)

Teaching the guards how to use the blowgun. (Photo: Margherita Rinaldi)

For two weeks a month I take a groups of volunteers across the country to Nueva Gambach where Procosara’s field station is based. Nueva Gambach is a property belonging to Hans Hostettler and Christine Kohli de Hostettler – the founders of ProCosara. This property has 150ha of beautiful, near pristine Atlantic Forest and is located at the very southern tip of San Rafael.

When it rains the red dirt of the Atlantic Forest becomes an adventure to walk through! (Photo: Josh Mays)

The 15 days that we spend in the forest each month are tough but incredible. We get up between 4-4:30am and are out in the field before 5am. We then search the forest until dusk (12-15 hours later depending on the season) for the capuchins. The capuchins at Nueva Gambach are not full habituated, they are not even nearly as habituated as the monkeys I left behind at Laguna Blanca and they can be very hard to find. However, when we do find them we get to see some pretty exciting things, in my first week I got to see the hilarious solicitation behaviour of the females – something that took me nearly 4 years to see in Laguna Blanca.

The first time the volunteers crossed the river!

After the rain is great fun in the forest! (Photo: Marco Alesci)

The first ever Procosara volunteer group May/June 2017 (Photo: Josh Mays)

Walking past the lake to the forest Photo: Margherita Rinaldi)

Our first priorities at Nueva Gambach are to establish how many groups live in on the property and determine group demographics (we already have the feeding platform up and baited with a camera trap) and start to get an idea of where the different groups spend most of their time. In the long-term the plan is to combine this data with that collect at Laguna Blanca. This will hopefully provide a fuller understanding of the ecological needs of this species and allow development of a conservation strategy that will, in turn, help protect their habitat - the Atlantic Forest.

The forest guards putting up the feeding platform.

Adult male capuchin posing for the camera at their favourite sleeping site. This is by far the best place in the forest to see them and they seem to spend the night there every few days.

Capuchin munching on pine cones in the pine plantation on the edge of the forest. The capuchins slept in the pine plantation a lot during the winter months.

Exploring up the river.