Trésor Foundation Utrecht
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Trésor Foundation Utrecht |
Camera traps in TrésorWithin the scope of their SPECIES* programme, Kwata** has chosen Kaw Mountain as this year's research area. This programme, which is supported by WWF and performed by Kwata, is being financed by the EU and the French government (Ministry of Research).Several camera traps are placed in strategic places which are so far apart that the animal that is being researched, especially the jaguar (Panthera onca), can't activate two traps on one day. Each jaguar has a fur with a pattern of its own and this enables us to identify each individual animal after close analysis of the shootings. After some time it is possible to follow the route of an individual animal that activates different cameras, to estimate the number of different individual animals that visit the area and to find a lot more different statistic and ecological data.
A total of some 15 traps have been placed in the forests of the Kaw mountain range, three of them in the Trésor reserve. Although the research is not yet finished, we can't resist the temptation to show you the first shootings from our reserve. This jaguar is photographed at a few metres' distance of the reception building of Trésor. The crab-eating raccoon (Procyon cancrivorus) is taken by surprise in the lower part of the reserve. This is the very first reporting of this animal in the Trésor reserve. Camera traps had shortly before also helped locating it in the nature reserves Nouragues and la Trinité, in the interior of French Guiana. This species that was supposed to occur solely in the mangroves along the coast, could well be more widely spread than assumed up till now. ______________________ * SPECIES, Suivi des Populations des Espèces Charismatiques d'Intérêt ecologique et Scientifique, monitoring research into the populations of special species with ecological and scientific value ** KWATA: Association in French Guiana engaged in the protection of and research into nature.  |
