Page1 Giant Armadillo Project December 2015 Dear Supporters of the Giant Armadillo Conservation Project, It seems incredible that 2015 is almost over. This year really flew by so fast. I want to give an update on our activities for the past two months. In January, I will send out our annual progress report that will detail all the achievements of 2015. In the past two months, we ran two expeditions in the Pantanal and several shorter expeditions in the Cerrado. We are really delighted with the progress we have made during all expeditions. The past two months have been very productive. The end of October-early November expedition consisted of myself, Camila Luba and Yamil di Blanco an Argentinian researcher. Yamil has been working for the past 6 years on a giant anteater re-introduction project in Ibera, Argentina. He was responsible for monitoring giant anteaters that were released as part of a reintroduction program. Animals came from captivity, private individuals or rescues. He recently defended his Ph.D. analyzing habitat use and home ranges of these animals. Yamil had been advising us remotely on several aspects of our giant anteater work and it was fantastic to welcome him in the field. Most importantly Yamil will be using some of the giant anteater data we collected to compare results with his work in Ibera. Are the reintroduced giant anteaters behaving similarly to wild giant anteaters? Ibera is also a wetland and the structure of the landscape very similar to the Pantanal. This comparative study will be very important in assessing the success of the re-introduction. We are very happy about this Argentinan-Brazilian cooperation. Tired but determined to catch a giant armadillo Credit Diego Lizcano
Page2 Team picture with the Erics. Credit Diego Lizcano Team picture with Yamil Feels like she could be pregnant!
Page3 Roberta waking up and being released Floods seem to have started early this year. Credit Diego Lizcano
Team with Houdini1. Credit Diego Lizcano Page4
Gabriel and Duda with Houdini. Credit Diego Lizcano Page5
Page6 One of the main focuses of this expedition was recapturing our giant anteaters and testing the new giant anteater harnesses. You may remember we recently discovered that the giant anteater harnesses we put on animals in June and July where not functioning properly. Telonics replaced all the harnesses, free of cost, but that of course means re-capturing the animals. Gabriel Massocato and Bruna Oliveira came for a few days during this expedition to help us with this work. The new harnesses now use a different technology and can send some data every four days directly to my e-mail. We decided to test these new harnesses on three animals before using them on more animals. We were very happy that in just three days we managed to recapture three animals, one each day, and fit them with new harnesses. Harnesses were removed from other animals. I am happy to report that in December all three animals are doing well and data seems to be efficiently collected. Fingers crossed! For the past few months during every expedition the big question is always are our three adult females pregnant? In November we raced to answer this question. We struggled but were surprised to find Isabelle. Her transmitter batteries are due to run out. She was not exhibiting any nesting behavior and continued her routine of changing burrows. Jessica was rapidly located as she had a GPS device which emits a signal we can locate at a further distance. No baby for her either. As for Mariana, despite searching for her for several days we were unable to locate her. Roberta on the other hand is a sub-adult we estimate to be almost three years old and still immature. Roberta was successfully re-captured to fit a GPS device on her. Roberta s recapture took three nights as we had problems with a rat gnawing through the thread that keeps the trap door open! This meant racing through the night excited to expect a giant armadillo and getting frustrated seeing a rat run out! Once captured the procedure went smoothly and Roberta was released with a GPS device. No sign of her mother Dolores who we have not seen for several months now. However we were very surprised to find Jessica using an area bordering Roberta s home range. We found Jessica in area we believed to be Dolores s home range. In fact we could get a signal from both Jessica s and Roberta s transmitters (in opposite directions). Suddenly I begin to wonder if Dolores was not Jessica! What a crazy twist to the story! Giant Armadillo soap opera s at their best! That night we went through all our camera pictures and confirmed that Jessica was not Dolores During the expedition we also planned to capture Wally. Camila being part of the expedition we wanted to collect another semen sample from him. The last one, as his transmitter s batteries will be running out soon. It took us several days to locate him. Finally almost on the last day, at the end of the afternoon we picked up a faint beep. We were overjoyed. Unfortunately, he was located deep in forested area that was very difficult to reach, there was no way we could set our trap. We decided to attempt to catch him by hand. That evening as we prepared to get out a major storm broke! We need to use our telemetry device to locate the animal and it cannot get wet! We had to cancel our plans. Unfortunately the next day we were not able to locate him and our time in the field ran out. Frustrating. The December expedition can only be described as a roller coaster! It started off in a complicated way. Danilo Kluyber who was supposed to participate as the lead veterinarian was unable to participate due to family health issues and at the last minute Camila Luba had to change her plans to come. Unfortunately she was unable to come at the beginning of the expedition and would have to join a few days after. I also had to visit the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland in Edinburgh and was unable to join the team on the first day and could only arrive with Camila a few days later. Therefore Gabriel Massocato along with a vet trainee came on his own to locate all the animals before we arrived. This should not have been a problem. Field work is always full of surprises and the unexpected happens at the craziest moments. About 15 km before arriving to the ranch the convoy of cars took a break. The convoy included the Tapir team as well as our kids in two other trucks. Gabriel walked around as they took a break and to his surprise found an active giant
Page7 armadillo burrow. He could not believe his own eyes! A new giant armadillo in a place we had not worked before. What amazing luck or bad luck? He was alone without a veterinarian. I received a frantic message as I was having dinner with my boss in Edinburgh! Thankfully Renata Santos, the lead veterinarian of the Tapir team, worked with us for over a year before becoming a full time tapir veterinarian and had experience in giant armadillo anesthesia and fitting a GPS. The Tapir team worked their schedule so that Renata could take some time off to give us a hand. We are so grateful to them to have made this procedure possible. It took Gabriel three nights to capture the animal, it dug away from the trap, escaped from him as he tried to manually catch him, did not come out one night. But in the end Gabriel was successful. I cannot stress enough how tough this was for him, being on his own without a team. Reminds me of our first year on the project, but. He did it! Congratulations Gabriel! The new juvenile male was called Eric in honor of Eric Bairrão Ruivo who is the Science, Collection and Conservation Director for Beauval Zoo in France and Conservation Manager for Beauval Conservation Association (Beauval Nature) who have been supporting us for several years now. It was a real treat to have Eric in the field with us. We calculated that we have known each other for 21 years! Eric was visiting with his wife and daughter and spent almost a week participating in both armadillo and tapir projects as well as enjoying the ranch. It was wonderful getting to spend time with him. Together with Eric, Eric the giant armadillo was safely released and we look forward to learn more about this sub-adult male. One of the objectives of this December expedition was to re-capture Tracy the juvenile female caught in July. Gabriel set the trap the morning I was due to arrive. However while searching for one of our giant anteaters later that morning, he found a new fresh giant armadillo burrow. This was outstanding, it had been months since we found new fresh burrows with an animal inside and Gabriel had just found two in a matter of days. This animal was in an area which is at the limit of Wally s territory. However this area is also used by Houdini and liana and about a kilometer away from Mariana s territory. Who could it be? He therefore set another trap and waited anxiously for me to arrive. Two traps were set for that night, a first for us! I say anxiously because it had rained very heavily and there was severe flooding to get to the ranch. He was not sure I would make it that day. I arrived from cold, windy Edinburgh where it actually snowed one night and went straight to the field where it was extremely hot and humid. I set out with Camila and Thiago Martins a tick expert that has been working with us since the beginning of the project and came to experience firsthand our work. The Pantanal was very flooded and I did get our truck stuck, but we managed to get it out on our own after a bit of hard and muddy work. As soon as I arrived to the ranch I went out at night to try and capture Tracy with Diego Lizcano who was participating in the Tapir expedition while Gabriel waited at the other trap with two other volunteers. Tracy was caught that night and fitted with a GPS the next day, and the next night the other animal was caught. Once anesthetized thanks to the transponder we were able to identify Houdini! It had been exactly one year since we had caught Houdini and we could not believe our luck. You may remember that last year, during the December expedition he had waited out in his burrow and we had been unable to catch him. What a treat to see him again. Took a whole year for us to catch him again. Camila was able to electro-ejaculate him and we learned that he was now a fertile male. Wonderful news, however surprising as his territory overlaps part of Wally s! I believed that once he matured he would have dispersed; I also wonder if he is related to one of the females living in the area as always many more questions than answers. Can not wait for our genetics results. After Houdini s capture, we therefore set out to recapture and fit Wally with a GPS. We wanted to monitor both males at the same time to better understand overlap. However, incredibly, while searching for Wally, Camila and I found another active burrow!...we go months without finding active burrows and suddenly three were found in a matter of days. We therefore set out our trap and on the second night a new animal was caught which was identified through her transponder as Liana! Liana was one of the first animals we monitored over
Page8 three years ago. We only saw her in a camera trap two years ago and I was worried something might have happened to her. There she was, beautiful and healthy. We could not have been happier. She was fitted with a GPS and we look forward to confirming data collected three years ago. As for the other animals we monitor the three giant anteaters are doing well. After a bit of work we found Isabelle and Jessica and neither are displaying any signs of breeding. As for Mariana and Wally despite all our hard work we were unable to locate them. I am beginning to wonder if Mariana has not had a baby in a heavily forested area of her home range where we cannot detect her signal. Only time will tell. Overall this has been one of the most productive and crazy expeditions we have ever had. Besides two nights, all the other nights were spent in the field waiting to catch a giant armadillo. Exhausting but fantastic. As for work in the Cerrado, progress has been very exciting. Gabriel and Bruna have done an outstanding job. They have visited 24 areas and confirmed the presence of giant armadillos in over 10 of them. The objective of the Cerrado expansion is to map the distribution of giant armadillos through the Cerrado of Mato Grosso do Sul. The preliminary study has now been completed and Bruna is analyzing the data to guide our efforts in the rest of the state. The Citizen Science experiment is working very well and numerous contacts have been made. Several of these contacts are providing new data on giant armadillo occurrences. We are very grateful and pleasantly surprised by the positive response and excitement regarding the species. It is interesting to learn that many people have seen the project on the news and have already seen materials about the project. This confirms that all the outreach and communication work we have heavily invested in during the past five years has been effective. We are now taking a two week break and will return to the field only on January 5 th. The past two months have gone by very fast and so much progress made. Once again thank you so much to all of you for your support. We could not do any of this without you. On behalf of the Giant Armadillo team I wish you all the best for the Holiday season. Happy New year to everyone. All the best, Arnaud and the Giant Armadillo Project team.