Expedition Pantanal: Caimans at night!
April 20, 2006.

Things here in the Pantanal have been far from ordinary. One of our nights was spent out in the swamps with one of the Brazilian researchers, Birro, capturing caiman. These crocodilians can grow to seven feet and are not to be taken lightly. Shining our flashlights into the water exposed a sea or red eyes staring back at us. There were literally hundreds of them. At one point Birro jumped out of the truck waded into the water and snatched a juvenile from the murky water. One of the Brazilians with us, Saulsu, had recently been attacked by a caiman and upon our arrival at the fazenda on Saturday was eager to show his "war wounds" to my six students. After taking vital measurements the caiman was released and we were on to bigger and better things.

Moving deeper into the marshes we spotted a large caiman that Birro wanted to catch. Because of its size, this time we used a lasso device and it was clear the caiman was not happy. Letting out an eerie vocalization he thrashed violently and moved a total distance of about 20 feet in just a few seconds before finally being subdued.

Simple masking tape proved to be one of the tools of the caiman catching trade. The animals snout was taped shut and its eyes were also wrapped. Birro explained that this was to minimize the stress on the animal. These animals are incredibly powerful and Birro struggled to wrestle the caiman on to its back. Once this was accomplished we were able to take measurements.The critical measurement is its length from the tip of its nose to its hind legs. The tail is not included in the length because it is not unusual for caiman to lose large parts of their tails. It was determined that it was a male and it was marked by cutting off pieces of the scale on the tail. The markings made by Birro actually determine where it was caught as well as what month and year.

Once all of our work was done it was time to release the animal. Using great care the tape was taken off. Immediately the caiman started to come toward us and the less experienced of us walked quickly back toward the truck laughing nervously.

Even though there are population estimates of up to thirty million of these reptiles in the Pantanal we have learned that only twenty to thirty percent of caiman live to sexual maturity. They are preyed upon substantially and were heavily poached in the 1970's and 1980's for their leather of which only a small part of the side of the caiman was useable. The leather was smuggled out of Brazil and made into shoes and handbags and distributed all over the world. As a result, their number began to decline quickly. Poaching laws did not help much so Birro and another researcher came up with a plan that was recently accepted by the Brazilian government. After ten years of research and data collection they have put together a plan to help take the hunting pressure off the caiman population. They are now raising thousands of caiman in the Pantanal. Of the caiman raised to be released into the wild a certain percentage will be tagged and available for hunting. The number made available is equal to the number that statistics say would be lost due to natural predation anyway. In this way these researchers hope to create a sustainable population of crocodiles while at the same time legalizing and controlling the human harvesting of these animals. As a bonus, hunters who trap the tagged animals relay information back to the researchers and through it they are able to gather important date on migration patterns and growth. It is through the efforts of these dedicated scientists that the caiman population remain strong for years to come.

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