Collared anteater, continued

After leaving the collared anteater to what I considered to be its last breath, I went on to the reception center, where I told Cleuson, the caretaker, about the animal. What he said surprised me because I discovered that the anteater hadn't been hit by a vehicle. It had been attacked by three dogs the day before! Cleuson happened to come by on his bicycle at the time to see the anteater fighting for its life. He said that he tried to get the dogs off the wild animal but the anteater had managed to hook one of his claws inside one of the dog's mouth and wouldn't let go. Then too the other two dogs were attacking, so Cleuson decided not to get into the middle of a potentially dangerous situation for him. I should have asked for more details, but I wasn't interested in hearing everything there was to know. I've said it before and I'll say it again, wild animals don't have a chance of survival after man has set foot in its territory. It's a question of time before they all disappear from the area. Terror stories of what happened to them are abound. Sloth with their babies on their backs being burned alive as the forest is readied for mechanized agriculture; crested caracaras and vultures feeding carrion of snakes and other animals after the burning; birds poisoned by insecticides and herbicides; hunters killing everything that moves; and dogs forming their own hunting parties. So it goes, the law of the jungle, so to speak. On the way out, I didn't look very closely to see if the collared anteater had moved from where I left it. If it were there, I didn't see it. I can fantasize that it survived! In order not to face Maria's Lake again, I took a side road that up until recently has been nothing more than a path for walkers and bikers. It is now used by numerous drivers, who like myself, are desperate to get back and forth to their properties. It's become a muddy mess and I nearly got stuck twice. I couldn't help noticing that there were demarcation stakes placed every 8-10 meters on the edge of the secondary forest. Lots for sale! There are now about 25 million of us human beings in the Amazon now. How much of the Amazon forest and its wildlife will be left in the years to come?

Collared Anteater +

I decided to get to the Bosque today, anyway I could get there. The dirt road going out has been so bad, I feared getting swallowed up by Lake Maria (or Maria's Hole, for those wanting to be more derogatory), the enormous mud hole the size of a football field blocking access. Needing to get some cement out to Cleuson for continuation of sidewalk building around the reception center, I nudged my small Fiat into the muddy water and went for it. It turned out to be much deeper than I had expected, so fearing that the motor would go under water, I stepped on the gas pedal and succeeded to surf to the other side. The car was mud from top to bottom but at least I didn't drown out the motor, which would have been a disaster. The rest of the 3 kilometers to the Bosque weren't interstate quality, but after Lake Maria episode, it was a piece of cake. Right after entering the Bosque limits, I saw this poor collared anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla) laid out in the road. "Probably hit by a vehicle", I thought to myself. I got out of the car to have a look and to my surprise, the animal wasn't dead. I could see a slight movement of it stomach, as it breathed. I took it the grassy area off the road by carrying it by its strong prehensile tail. I figured the anteater was much too far gone for me to have to worry about it swiping me with one its sharp claws. After putting it down in the grass, it raised its head maybe an inch off the ground and tried to get up. Then its head returned to earth and there were no more movements, except for the slight breathing. I left it to its fate and went on to the Bosque. What really happened to the anteater, coming up next.

Map of Bosque Santa Lúcia location

After sending this Google Earth map to a friend in Michigan, I realized that it would be worthwhile sharing with the readers of this Tropical Biodiversity blog. I've posted hundreds of images and texts on the blog, but I'm not sure I ever told anyone where the Bosque is located. Start with the City of Santarém at the top of the map. It borders with the Tapajós River and in some places with the Amazon River. Both come together in front of the city. To get to the Bosque come down the Santarém-Cuiabá Highway, BR-163 to Cipoal, which is 15 kilometers south. Then turn left on the dirt road (now blocked by Maria Lake, an enormous mud hole) to the Bosque, which is only 3 kilometers away. For those adventurous souls wanting to jump in their 4-wheel vehicles to go the Bosque right now, don't. Drop me an e-mail to make an appointment for a tour. The address is: amazonto - at -gmail - you know what. I'm told that this funny language will keep the spiders from spreading your address to spam dealers. I'm not worried, we got plenty of spiders at the Bosque.

Gil Serique's book

I'm remiss in not having announced the publication of Gil Serique's book on birds in the Amazon. At last a guidebook for the more common birds of the region ... and written by a local birder and photographer. As a fellow guide and owner of Bosque Santa Lúcia, I know that most visitors coming to this part of the word think they can find bird identification books locally. That's not true, at least until now. It's indeed a pleasure to see this quality product being made available for birders and also for the general public, all hungry for information on the Amazonian environment. I love the introduction to this publication, written by Alan Dean Foster (author of Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien): "Master guide and naturalist Gil Serique doesn't just live in the Amazon ... he lives the Amazon every day of his life. From its teeming, vibrant cities to the tiny villages that hug its tree-shrouded tributaries, from the line of hyperactive ants hunting for food to the jaguar silently prowling the moon-kissed shadows while raucous macaws chorus overhead, no one knows the secrets of the great river and its surrounding countryside better than Gil Serique." Visit Gil's website at www.youramazon.org

Tree resin

Nature's own acrylic, a glob of hardened resin from one of the breu trees. There a lot of resin producing trees at Bosque Santa Lucia, but this sample came from a collector, who commercializes the product for caulking canoes and boats. The genus is Protium, but I don't know the species. There are some breu trees which produce resin of the color seen in the attached image. There are others which produce black resin.

Neighbor's cashew tree

Looking out our bedroom window, you'd never know that we live in the second largest city in this State of Pará. There are still lots of trees around to soften our eyeballs against light and an increasing amount of traffic coming up Travessa Turiano Meira. Most of the trees are fruit trees of one kind or another, like this very old cashew tree two lots down from our house. To be a cashew tree, it's gigantic! It must be more than 20 meters high and spreads out from one side of the yard to the other. Interestingly enough, the fruits are relatively small ones, compared to the large and colorful commercialized cashews seen throughout the country. I assume this must be some variant of the savanna cashew, which is native to this region along the Tapajós River. The owners of the lot also have a small farm on the Amazon floodplain, so they alternate between the two. It's a big family with many kids and grandkids, so it's good that they can spread out.

Long-horned beetle

After doing some preliminary searches, I came to the conclusion that the insect you see in the images is a long-horned beetle. It's possible that it's the Titanic longhorn, which would make it one of the largest beetles in South America. Cleuson spotted it in the forest yesterday as he rode his bicycle to the Bosque. Knowing that we had the Amizade Volunteers coming for a tour, he captured the insect for a showing at the reception center. Everybody got pictures of the giant. When we returned from out walk, it had left the center, hopefully for the woods.

Dung beetle

This dung beetle is showing off his Olympic style by moving a ball of dung over the forest floor at record speed. Notice that it pushes with the rear legs. I was anxious to spend some time seeing and photographing this event, but I was with a group of Amizade Volunteers on one of the Bosque trails. I quickly took a couple of pictures so that others could do the same. There's no need in my reinventing the wheel by talking about the dung beetle. Just click on the above link for almost everything you ever wanted to know about the topic. I look forward to spending more time with them in the future, and to get a better picture of the beetle. In case you're wondering where the dung came from, it's probably that of a howler monkey.

Louro preto tree

I can be accused of cutting down trees too! I found it necessary to cut a few of them to build the Bosque Santa Lúcia reception center a few years ago and more recently to clear way for the construction of the water box tower. Then, too, I needed some space for a few special trees not found on the trail system. I can't remorse the fact because I've been able to maintain nearly 300 acres of forest since we bought the land in 1981. In that time I've seen a lot of neighboring forests fall and God only knows how much of the Amazon forest has been devastated in the same time span. I started with a secondary forest because the primary forest had been cut more than a hundred years ago, followed by slash and burn agriculture. The place is still secondary forest and will continue to be such for a long, long time, should it be lucky enough to survive the onslaught of the spreading city and suburbanites. Primary forests, like the Tapajós National Forest, are made up of trees hundreds of years old. Some boast an old age of a thousand years! Image: a cut louro preto tree (Ocotea sp.). The family is Lauraceae. Note the very dark heartwood, compared to the sapwood around it.

Clearing land

At the very beginning of the rainy season, we noticed a few people with a chainsaw coming in and out of a small road that runs through the Bosque. Then a truck with sawed up logs. I figured that they weren't cutting anything on the Bosque property, but I wanted to see where. It turned out to be on a rather large piece of property bordering one side of our forest land. The land belongs to a person we know, who lives three kilometers away on the highway. He had made a deal with some other people from the same community to provide labor for the clearing of some 12-15 acres for the purpose of planting corn, beans and rice. Likewise, the workers will tend the crops in return for part of the harvest. The wood was sold to a person who makes charcoal, thus the truck we saw coming and going. Image: some of the secondary forest ready to be hauled off to the charcoal ovens.

My mahogany trees, continued

And here's our parasitic friend, erva de passarinho (bird's herb), having dinner at the expense of a tree next to the Bosque reception center. Note the root system of the plant on the branch of the tree. The genus is Phoradendron and it sports many species. As it matures, it produces fruit that is a favorite for many birds, including the social flycatchers, which nest in the Pau Brasil trees next to the center. They guarantee that every tree around the building gets a present of feces with the seeds of the plant.

My mahogany trees, continued

Sorry, I guess it's time to return to that mahogany tree that the birds killed. What you see in the image isn't a big log. It's one of those mahogany trees I planted in 2001, across from the main entrance to Bosque Santa Lucia. I cut it because it had been killed by a parasitic plant that the birds spread around via their feces. The fruit of the plant is one of their favorite foods and I can truthfully say that there's hardly a tree around the open areas of the Bosque not infested with it. The seeds lock into the bark of trees and anything else it hits like a rivet. In no time at all a good looking parasitic vine is sucking up the nutrients of the host and smothering and shading out the host at the same time. The trick is keep pulling the vines off before they begin do damage. In the case of the mahogany, we let it stay on too long. This was the first mahogany tree, and the last, to be cut. What really surprised me was the quality of the wood for such a small tree. Most species at this age would be present only sapwood, not heartwood. I'm not a forestry engineer, but it seems to me that there is a lot of usable lumber in this log of only 8 inches or so. I've read about mahogany trees being harvested at only 15-20 years of age. Now I believe it. Next, the parasitic plant.

My mahogany trees, continued

This image provides a better view of the encroaching forest over the young trees planted along the road. The power line poles were being put up at this time and you can see some space between them and the reforestation project. Later a regional CELPA supervisor ordered that all the poles be placed further back from the road and that the clearing be increased to 15 meters. That pretty much ended my reforestation project on that side of the road. The young tree you see in the middle of the image, the one with long leafy stems, is cedar (Cedrela ordorata). This species turned out to be one of the better adapted trees. A few of these were left under the power line.

My mahogany trees, continued

This image will give you an idea as to the work and expense of planting and maintaining the mahoganies and other species planted along the road going into Bosque Santa Lúcia. The picture was taken right after the cleaning up operation of cutting back grass, brush, vines, etc The mahoganies are spaced at about ten meters from the edge of the road. A picture was in order because it was seldom that I could afford to have this done. The most difficult part of the job is on the other side of the young trees, i.e., the encroaching forest. As you can see, the higher trees and vines are growing out in the direction of the road looking for more light. Next image.

My mahogany trees, continued

This area cut by CELPA is right across the road from the main entrance to the Bosque. The undergrowth here is relatively clean because it was being prepared for another entrance and parking area. In the image you can see three mucajá palms (Acrocomia aculeata) and one taperebá (Spondias lutea) on the ground. Only three meters back of these fallen trees, right under the power line, are four young mahogany trees, which were left standing. I guess in part because the power line crew recognized them as being planted and in part because they posed no danger, for the time being.

My mahogany trees, continued

One of the hardest areas hit by the construction of the power line was at the old school and church site, which reverted to the Bosque after the community moved both down to the village some 2 kilometers away. I had planted a lot of new trees in this area, most of which got the ax and chainsaw, including this large mango tree already starting to fall (image). I have yet to return there to see what can be salvaged, or replanted. In all fairness to CELPA, the construction teams left some of my newly planted trees along the 2 kilometers of road cleared for the line. The problem is that these survivors are either under the line, or next to it. It's a question of time before they have to be cut. But before that happens, I want to top them out so they don't reach the height of electrical cables. I may end up with some bonsais, but that's better than cutting them. More coming.

My mahogany trees, continued

The first 50 mahogany trees (Swietenia macrophylla) I planted was back in 2001, a donation of seedlings by Dr. Paulo Sérgio Pimentel, a local physician and the administrator of SUDAM, Sr. Barrosa. I mean to tell you that it's not easy to plant fifty trees when they're being planted in an area that's already in trees - of one seize or other. By 2001, I had already learned that it was a lost cause to plant new trees along the Bosque trail system, or in the forest. Seedlings need sun, and lots of it. I lost hundreds of seedlings trying the impossible. So in the case of the mahogany seedlings, I got "smart" by clearing some 10 meters alongside the dirt road running through the Bosque. Perfect for the situation. Over the next four years I planted a total of approximately 250 mahoganies. The cost of keeping them relatively clean of brush was more than I could afford, but at least they were planted and with time they would find their place in the world. In the meanwhile I received another rather large donation of seedlings from Drs. Carlos and Marilha Godinho, which were also planted along the road. Again, there were times when the poor things were almost suffocated by the forest moving in on them. To make a long story short, I lost most of these trees because of the construction of a power line that brought electricity into the communities along the road. As reported earlier, CELPA required a whopping 15 meters of clearing in order to protect the line from falling trees. And clearly, they needed it. In more recent times a tree was blown over by a high wind, which destroyed 7 concrete poles and left the three cables on the ground. Maybe I could have delayed the construction of the power line because the Bosque is a "green" area, but I would have been on considered an obstruction to progress by the local populations, who have fought for decades to get electricity. The attached image shows one of the first mahogany trees to be planted in 2001. More coming, including an explanation of the "killer birds".

My mahogany trees

When we bought the Bosque Santa Lúcia property back in 1981, not one mahogany tree was to be found on the property, or anywhere else around the area. Out of the thousands of species of trees in the Amazon, mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) seems to have been the most sought after lumber by Brazilians and the international community. So much so that it's an endangered species today. What remains of the mahogany population today in Brazil is protected by the federal government under an agreement with the CITES Convention. Obviously there are loopholes in the management of the decree, but at least it will prevent every single last tree from being cut down for making expensive furniture in Europe and North America. The attached image is of a young mahogany tree at that was killed by birds at the Bosque. Killer birds? Yes, I'll explain in an upcoming post.

Fruit from an epiphyte

I wonder why some hungry bird hasn't eaten these beautiful berries on an epiphyte located next to the Bosque Santa Lucia reception center. They've been hanging there for many weeks, but nobody touches them. Hum ...

Red dracena

Midmorning light filters through a red dracena at home. I remember planting it last year. It wasn't exactly a cutting. Someone, maybe me, had broken off a stalk from somewhere else and I simply stuck it in the ground next to the driveway. I'm surprised that it took root and also happy, given that it turned out to be a beautiful plant.