Delitos ambientales: no cesa la caza furtiva en áreas naturales protegidas de la zona Norte de Misiones misionesonline.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from misionesonline.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A Colombian national park reveals its natural secrets through camera traps
Forty-four camera traps have recorded various species in El Tuparro National Natural Park in Colombia’s Orinoco region, from jaguars and pumas, to deer, tapirs and peccaries, reflecting the park’s healthy ecosystems.
A separate survey also recorded a Guianan white-eared opossum (Didelphis imperfecta), a species never before recorded in Colombia.
The protected area has just turned 40 years old, and although it represents a rare conservation success story, rangers and researchers say it continues to face pressures from fires, sport and commercial fishing, and hunting.
Compounding the problem is the growing human presence in and around the park, as the economic and political crises in neighboring Venezuela drives an influx of people across the border in search of food.
E-Mail
IMAGE: Animals like peccaries and tapirs boost soil levels of nitrogen, an essential element to plant growth view more
Credit: João Paulo Krajewski
The White-lipped peccary Tayassu pecari is a boar-like hoofed mammal found throughout Central and South America. These animals roam the forest in bands of 50 to 100 individuals, eating a wide variety of foods. In Brazil s Atlantic Rainforest, they prefer the fruit of the jussara palm Euterpe edulis.
The jussara is very abundant in this biome, probably thanks to vast amounts of dung, urine, and soil trampling by peccaries as well as tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) and other fruit-eating animals, or frugivores. This behavior releases forms of nitrogen, a key element in plant growth.