sábado, 2 de abril de 2016

The "tuna no cat" myth has been busted/ El mito de "Atún no atrapa gato" ha sido desmentido

For some years, we have been trapping terrestrial mammals here in the Yucatan Peninsula using Tomahawk traps. In many, many hour/traps we have been able to catch only three ocelots and one jaguaroundy. All of them using either live chickens or the carcasses of opossums killed inside of the traps by the cats themselves. Recently we used some camera-traps to try to document if cats and other animals get attracted to the tuna/sardine/egg baited traps. Here are some of the results:




These pictures clearly document that cats actually DO get attracted to the baited traps, but rarely enter them.  So the cuestion is: Why? We do not know, yet.

Today something kind of weird but also wonderful happened. My students call me early in the morning because they got a large ocelot in a trap destined to catch mostly marsupials. I went right away (I cannot say where this was to protect the animal(s) life(s) because it is not in a Natural Protected Area). The funny thing is that the trap was baited with both the usual tuna/sardine/egg bait we prepare mostly for opossums, but this time they also added a bit of chorizo (a mexican/spanish sausage-like inlay). Tadeo didn't like the chorizo for their own consumption, so they decided to experiment a bit and used it as part of the bait.

The cat was a large adult male (10 kg) in good, but thin physical condition. We proceded to process the animal as usual (tranquilizing him, measuring and weighting him and taking blood and parasite samples). Then we released the animal back into the wild.




Sorpresa, sorpresa! No opposum this time, but a large beautiful kitty instead!



The large but thin cat lays anesthetized in the table.

Even when he was in good physical condition, the thin state of the cat might be because of the relatively low abundance of prey due to human overhunting and habitat modification. Compared with the previous cats we have caught in Calakmul, this has been the largest, but also the thinest.



Edgar Rojero (Ecosur master's student) and Irwin Te Chavez and Tadeo Mateos (Edgar's assistant biologists) very happy with the ocelot they caught.

Taking a blood sample. I am actually kind of rusty and my injured shoulder was not helping much, so Edgar took the blood sample at the end.




The cat back into the wild.

So, it was the chorizo that busted the "tuna no cat" myth
Hard to say. I don't thing so. I just think that this particular cat was so bloody hungry that he couldn't help the smell of the tuna/chorizo combination, entered the trap and got caught. 

Anyway, here is a little tip for you guys cat-trapping lovers: Not having success in your cat trapping? Try some chorizo you don't like and you might catch one!
:)

Have a good one!

Photos copyright by Edgar Rojero, Irwin T. Chavez, Tadeo Mateos and Manuel Weber (assorted)