Arnaud's Blog: Have you seen this armadillo?

17/11/2015 in Conservation

After a frustrating update from the Pantanal in my last blog, I promised some great news regarding the Cerrado expansion. I am really pleased to say that things are going very well and progressing as planned. We were able to run our first model on giant armadillo distribution thanks to the work of Helen Maranhao. Helen is a student we funded to collect all existing locations of giant armadillos in government databases, biodiversity surveys and interviews with organisations and researchers. Over 30 locations were obtained. Predictably the map is incomplete, but it is a great starting point.

Gabriel meeting young future field biologists.

Through a collaboration with the local federal university, alongside modelling expert Jose Ocha, we have selected 20 watershed areas (selected based on % of native vegetation cover) to run a preliminary test on methodologies. At the moment we have surveyed eight areas and plan to visit 30 before the end of the year.

I am relieved to report that we are finding evidence of giant armadillos in some of these areas. However, finding individuals does not mean viable populations and we still have a lot of work to do to fully assess the situation. The good news is we have had very positive responses from the local communities and we are creating a lot of interest in the species. This work is very much community based and we need to work in close partnership with all stakeholders. Recognising the importance of this, we are launching a citizen science exercise to help us with our work and to promote the species.

Through the help of local media we are calling upon everyone in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul to help us find giant armadillos. We have prepared a poster and pamphlets that describe how to recognise evidence of giant armadillos. Posters will be distributed in key places throughout the state during our visits and the pamphlets distributed to selected partners. Both these documents are being communicated through social networks and press. We recently did our first press interviews and hope to be doing television soon too. This work is aimed at encouraging public interest in this unique species and participation in giant armadillo conservation. I realise this will take time, but I think we have to use as many creative methods as we can to make this happen. I really look forward to reporting on the progress made.

Gabriel demonstrating field techniques to student biologists.

Giant armadillo conservation does not only happen in the field. Gabriel gave an intensive course to students on field techniques recently in an attempt to get the younger generation to let go of their cell-phones and tablets! Capacity-building is a big part of our work and we need to get biologists interested in field work and conservation (harder said than done!). We are pleased that after several meetings, the Pantanal Cerrado of WWF Brasil will be using the results of our work to help establish protected areas for giant armadillos!

A few weeks ago I presented our project and all the educational materials to the education board of the municipality of Campo Grande. I am hoping that in 2016 we can launch an outreach campaign in the 100 schools in and around Campo Grande on armadillos. If that is successful I will extend this work to the whole State! These partnerships and initiatives involve a lot of meetings and discussions but we are making solid progress.

Last but not least, I recently had the honour of being invited to attend the 8^th Conference of Brazilian Mammalogy, where the organisers put on a special symposium for Xenarthra. I gave a presentation on armadillo conservation: where we are now and what we want to achieve. The idea was to try to get researchers working on armadillos to work more closely together.

None of this work would be possible without the long term support from RZSS and we are very grateful. Thank you so much for supporting our work.

All the best from Brazil,

Arnaud