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During our last field trip to the Greater Calakmul Region (GCR) we trapped this female feral dog deep in the jungle of Pach Uitz (about 50 km north of the north core area of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve). The animal was trapped about five kilometers from the village in the middle of a large, almost continuous block of tropical forest.The animal, an adult female, was partially blind from the right eye and the left eye-ball was missing. She was extremely thin (caquectic) and with a heavy parasite burden. She was euthanised in situ after taking samples.
Ironically, I have a funded project to study feral dogs and cats in the Petenes Biosphere Reserve (more than 500 km from the GCR) and in more than 600 hours of trapping effort we have been unable to catch any feral dogs (despite the fact that we know they exist in there). In our first trapping effort in Calakmul we caught this bitch.
The animal is highly symbolic for us and also it is kind of worrisome, because it represent the potential and real risk of transmission of diseases and parasites (such as distemper, rabies, toxoplasma, leptospira among many others) to endangered wildlife such as the jaguar, ocelots, tayras, etc...
We also trapped the largest marine toad I have ever seen, lots of marsupials and a few turtles that entered the traps attracted by the bait.
Here some pictures:
Victor and Guillermo handling the bitch.
She was extremely thin. Living in the jungle is obviously hard for dogs and it take its toll
Amazingly she ate the whole bait, but left the live chicken alive (after chewing the chicken cage in an effort to get it out). Was it because we just came in time to save the chicken?
Surprise! We have got the first one!
This is another dog we caught, but it happened to be the dog of a local peasant. We release him right away.
The largest toad I have ever seen. Look at the size compared with the size of the trap and the dish used to set the bait. It weighted more than 1 kg! Amazing! No wonder they are eating almost everything in Australia! I was afraid he could eat me! :)
The two species of Didelphis (D. marsupialis -up- and D. viginiana -down-). We are getting a lot of data from these guys.
