Baru and Caliandra are part of nature again and are already making history in the maned wolf universe. Thanks to the reintroduction adventure they went through, they provided important information so that new offspring of the endangered species can also return to the wild.
The history of Baru begins in the municipality of Cocos, in Bahia. He and four other puppies were rescued when they were about 20 days old and taken to the BrasÃlia Zoo, which, at that time, was the closest place with enough structure to accommodate the animals.
Immediately, thinking began to put into practice something that had only been tried in a structured way, until now, only once: the protocol for the reintroduction to the wild of the largest canid in South America, currently stamped in our note of BRL 200.
The difficulty of the process must have already become clear, otherwise it would have already been put into action other times, even more considering that we are talking about an iconic species in the country and threatened with extinction — considered vulnerable, according to ICMBio.
In the case of these puppies, the problem already started with age. In the first three months of life, maned wolves have very intense parental care. During this period, the little ones depend on, observe and learn from their parents, according to Rogério Cunha de Paula, a biologist and deputy coordinator of the ICMBio’s Cenap (National Center for Research and Conservation of Carnivorous Mammals).
This means that, if in that space of time, these canids get used to humans, they end up with a “domesticated” behavior, which jeopardizes the chances of a reintroduction and survival in the wild. Baru became very used to human beings, to the point of coming to lick people’s hands and cry asking for affection.
Baru (fruit of a tree native to the Cerrado) had a major obstacle to return to nature. And that’s where Caliandra enters the story.
She was also an orphan and was found almost dead on the side of a road – run overs are one of the main threats to the species. But when she was rescued, she was already an older puppy, who had managed to spend her first few months with her parents.
“Her behavior is totally different. She is a skittish wolf, who does not trust human beings, who is afraid of us”, says Cunha de Paula.
Caliandra could then be a kind of tutor. And so it was. “After Baru was alone with her, isolated from human beings, this animal changed its behavior from water to wine”, says the ICMBio specialist.
Their total isolation was possible thanks to the construction, in the cerrado of western Bahia, of a large enclosure of 2,500 m² within a continuum of preserved areas on the private properties of Sementes Oilema, Irmãos Gatto Agro and CondomÃnio Santa Carmem (all belonging to a same family), in addition to the work done by Parque Vida Cerrado, which is sponsored by Galvani Fertilizantes.
In this enclosure, the animals were only surrounded by a screen, so that they could be recognized by other wolves in the region and could also learn to live in that place, get to know the smells and fruits of the surroundings (the species is omnivorous).
“The maned wolf is a territorialist species, so I can’t train him in the park and release him where I want him to stay. The first challenge was really finding an area capable of receiving two individuals and for him to be accepted by the wolves that live in that area, because he is a strange animal that is coming there competing for territory”, says Gabrielle Rosa, coordinator of Parque Vida Cerrado.
The territorialism of the animals was filmed during the adaptation period, with maned wolves outside and the two animals in readaptation fighting through a separation network.
But it is not enough just to know the fruits of the region. For an omnivorous animal, it is also important to learn to catch animals that are in the surroundings and that, for a successful reintroduction, will necessarily have to be part of the future diet.
For the development of hunting, little by little the young maned wolves lost access to food and began to have a greater supply of live prey.
Another point that may seem like a detail, but it is very important, is the feeding schedule of these canids. In institutions, says Rosa, it is common for the meals of these animals to end up following the opening hours of the place. But in the wild, maned wolves are crepuscular-nocturnal. More specifically, the coordinator of Parque Vida Cerrado says that it was important to accustom the two newly arrived maned wolves to the hours of that specific region of the cerrado in western Bahia.
“The prey they are going to feed on has a schedule more at the end of the morning, around four to five hours. So the wolves have to get used to this time when the prey they are going to eat will be circulating”, says Rosa .
The idea was, basically, to reproduce in the enclosure the different availability of food that they would have in nature, and to monitor and document everything, to check that the stages were going well.
In the end, just a few weeks ago and almost two years old, Baru and Caliandra were returned to the wild with the skills they needed to survive without the help of humans.
But they will still have some little help. It is a soft release project, so the enclosure where they spent the last few years will continue to offer water and food — something important, considering that there are already records of them (and even other maned wolves) returning to the place to feed. and hydrate.
In addition, the two will be accompanied by necklaces with GPS. Thanks to this monitoring, even days after the release, they noticed that Baru was very still — before, the animals were exploring the APP (Permanent Preservation Area) and had already traveled more than a hundred kilometers in the region. When they went to check on the animal, they found it injured and had to take it back to Parque Vida Cerrado for treatment. When he is better, Baru will be released again.
The work with these maned wolves should serve as a methodological basis for future reintroductions of pups. For example, says Cunha de Paula, the ideal is that training to be a wild maned wolf begins until 1 year of age and that release occurs until 2 years of age, when they reach reproductive age.
The protocol, although now more refined, should have several future adaptations, depending on the characteristics and situations of each of the animals treated and ensuring that the animal can, in fact, be released into the wild.
Despite everything having apparently gone well, the ICMBio researcher presents other fears and challenges for these recently freed animals. One of them is the issue of territorial conflicts with other wolves – Baru’s wounds may have been caused by Caliandra herself, according to the hypothesis of those involved in the project.
The other fear concerns the human being. “There’s the fear of him going on the road. It’s something that we have trauma”, says Cunha de Paula.
environmental sensitivity
There is an effort to raise awareness among rural landowners in the region, a large soy-producing area, with warnings that the animals have been released. According to Rosa, even before that, there was already a process of greater environmental awareness among the people of the region.
She exemplifies this awareness with two fires that hit the cerrado in the region — the biome is one of the most affected by fires in Brazil.
One of them hit the wolves’ enclosure. The surrounding farms, even at the risk of fire, favored fighting the flames in the enclosure.
In another case, a farm owner in the region saw a maned wolf pup in the middle of a burning area and took a risk to save the animal, says Rosa.
For the coordinator of Parque Vida Cerrado, these signs indicate one thing. “It has a future. We fight for it and look for these good examples [no agronegócio] so that they can infect and sensitize others”, says Rosa.
