‘Puma detectives’ highlight wildlife where Brazil’s Cerrado meets the Atlantic Forest

Named after a river in the state of Goiás, Corumbá the puma was named after a river in the central Brazilian state of Goiás. Between 2022 and 2023, as much of the world was locked down by the COVID-19 pandemic, Corumbá embarked on an epic journey through the state, beginning in Atlantic Forest State Park, or PEMA, to Serra de Caldas Novas State Park, or PESCAN. In between, he crossed different fragments of vegetation. He stayed at PESCAN for a period before moving on.

Corumbá walked more than 120 kilometers (75 miles) during the 11 months that he was monitored by a GPS radio-transmitter collar. His movements were logged until July 2023, when the transmitter’s battery died and the collar released itself from around Corumbá’s neck.

“[The cat] moved beautifully in the landscape, and we identified the fragments that he traveled through between the two parks,” says biologist Fernanda Cavalcanti de Azevedo, executive coordinator of the Mammals of the Cerrado Conservation Program (PCMC), which is connected to the Federal University of Catalão (UFCAT) in Goiás. “This enabled us to attribute a level of priority for the conservation of these specific regions because the puma acted as our ‘tool,’ showing us which areas they are.”

PCMC has been carrying out studies and extension programs in central Brazil since 2009 to learn how wildlife native to Brazil’s Cerrado savanna, mostly the carnivores, interact in landscapes modified by human activities. In that time, the program has zeroed in on two essential species: the hoary fox (Lycalopex vetulus), the focus of the Raposinha do Pontal project, and the puma (Puma concolor) one of the main focal points of the Suçuaranas Detetives project.

In this part of Brazil, pumas go by a number of names: leão-baio, suçuarana and onça-parda. The predator sits atop Brazil’s immensely rich food chain, alongside the jaguar (Panthera onca), another species considered endangered in central Brazil.

The Suçuaranas Detetives project was created when two independent but related projects linked to the PCMC came together: Ecological Detectives, a research project that began in 2020 to generate data on the puma’s ecology; and Backyard Suçuaranas, which came two years later to study issues related to human-wildlife interactions in the regions surrounding the protected areas, known here as conservation units. These projects are the result of a collaboration between PCMC and the Goiás state environmental agency, or SEMAD.

“We needed to understand how certain key species were using the territory — not only the conservation units but also the regions surrounding them — and the relationships between wildlife and humans,” says Maurício Vianna Tambellini, a SEMAD official who coordinates both the PEMA and PESCAN parks. “We already had data from monitoring pumas. So when the resources became available, we chose them because pumas are an animal that needs a lot of territory. This way, we were able to better understand the species and create a management target for the conservation unit that would guarantee the cat’s survival.”

During the very first conversation Tambellini had with the PCMC team, the idea was born to create a project that would involve both state parks and thus encompass both the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes in the state of Goiás. It would allow for recent puma sightings to be analyzed within the context of the two different ecosystems, transforming the species’ physical movement into a “compass” that would help define the most important zones for environmental protection.

There’s a scientific basis behind the idea of using a species as a conservation tool: the main goal is to reinforce research for a potential ecological corridor in the 80-km (50-mi) stretch between PEMA and PESCAN, where many animals transit. As the project is developed, it will seek to recuperate this region by planting native tree species in both biomes, compensating rural landowners for their participation. The goal is to ensure that pumas and other native species in the region can safely travel through the corridor.

Starting up

Before the pumas can become “ecological detectives,” their routes and habits in the region must be understood. Experts installed camera traps inside both parks and took expeditions to collect data on signals like paw prints and scratch marks. The field studies also collected biological material like the animals’ feces and carcasses of their prey in order to learn what the pumas eat. And of course, some of the pumas were captured and fitted with GPS collars so their movements could be mapped.

The three capture campaigns carried out so far were inside PEMA. In 2022, experts captured two male pumas that they named Corumbá and Pema (after the park). Both animals were monitored for a year, which is as long as the tracking collars work. The only puma still being monitored in 2024 was a female named Vulcanis. According to the remote data received, her wanderings cover territory that extends beyond the park limits. Just like Pema, Vulcanis walked far enough to cross the Corumbá River, which lies dozens of kilometers to the north, reaching the Pontal region.

Data from the project in the southeastern part of the state confirm the results of another puma study carried out between 2009 and 2017 by PCMC researchers in the Triângulo Mineiro region, bordered by the Grande and Parnaíba Rivers. That study found that male pumas tend to be most active at night and in the twilight hours, while females are cathemeral “in equal proportions,” or just as active during the day as the night. This difference in behavior means that hunting habits are different: female pumas, for example, are more likely to prey on daytime animals like tegu lizards (genus Tupinambis), coatis (Nasua nasua), giant armadillos (Priodontes maximus), giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) and capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris).

Cavalcanti also points to the reproductive habits of female pumas, known for their ability to mate with different males during their fertility period. Despite this behavior, she says, the females avoid territories dominated by males to keep their young out of danger. “The camera traps photographed more males than females, but that doesn’t mean there are more of them. The females just avoid confrontations with the males to protect their young,” Cavalcanti says. During its search for a mate, a male may kill a cub that’s the progeny of another male.

Aside from the social interactions that occur during mating season, pumas are solitary animals. After mating, the male leaves to patrol his territory and defend it from other males. The female, meanwhile, goes on to give birth to a litter of one to four cubs and proceeds to care for them by herself during their first year of life. The young males leave their mothers at a younger age than young females, traveling longer distances. This behavior explains why more young males meet their end as roadkill than young females.

Highways cut across territories rich in biodiversity all across Brazil, which means wildlife are often at great risk: in August 2024, a puma was killed by a vehicle on a stretch of the BR-060 road between the cities of Anápolis and Goiânia. During wildfire season, animals fleeing the flames embark on new routes, leaving them more vulnerable to accidents.

“The wildcats use open areas modified [by human activities, like highways] to cross from one fragment to another,” Cavalcanti says. “These animals live in areas with vegetative covering like uncleared pasture with many bushes or forest where they can hide. As they are ambush predators, pumas need a place to crouch and hide before they kill their prey.”

Even if always vast, the range that these cats need to live can vary in size. Inside the Triângulo Mineiro, the average size of territory for each puma was 210 square kilometers (80 square miles) for each monitored individual. But the region that Corumbá covered in southwestern Goiás was nearly 10 times larger. Pema was the champion in terms of area covered per month, at 530 km2 (200 mi2), while Vulcanis was the most reserved in her wanderings, covering only about 160 km2 (60 mi2), an area similar to that covered by the cats monitored in Minas Gerais state.

At least 15 pumas have been identified in PEMA and PESCAN since the project was launched. For the experts, this is cause for celebration since these wildcats are rare here. Despite the differences in vegetation, these state parks share several species of wildlife, including giant anteaters and armadillos, coatis, capybaras, seriemas (Cariama cristata), porcupines (genus Coendou), tayras (Eira barbara) and maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus), among others. Because it has more bodies of water, PEMA is also home to otters (Lontra longicaudis) and tapirs (Tapirus terrestris), together with jaguars and bush dogs (Speothos venaticus), which aren’t found inside PESCAN.

A detective network

When the project decided it needed to broaden the scope of its “detectives” to get more information on how to improve conservation in the region, the hoary fox and maned wolf were added to the team of “natural investigators.” This may even help the scientists find other large cat species — there had been no jaguar sightings in the region for 30 years, but two were spotted by camera trap and one captured during the 2022 campaign. In December, 2024, a photo of three bush dogs taken inside PEMA created a stir among the experts because these animals are rare and at risk of extinction.

“It is amazing that a park measuring less than [10 km2, or 4 mi2] like PEMA can be home to nearly all the carnivores we know in the transition region between the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest,” says Frederico Gemesio Lemos, the biologist who heads PCMC. “It’s something unprecedented. [The situation] is really very special.”

Jaguars, pumas, maned wolves and hoary foxes have also been sighted inside Terra Ronca State Park (PETER), the third conservation unit to join the Suçuaranas Detetives project since 2024. Located in northeastern Goiás, PETER is home to what’s believed to be one of the largest cave complexes in Latin America, with seven of Brazil’s 30 largest caves. Within its 570 km2 (220 mi2) are more than 300 caves, along with waterfalls, swamps, dry forests, wetlands, and a rich diversity of Cerrado fauna including the endemic Pfrimer’s parakeet (Pyrrhura pfrimeri).

Capture activities inside PETER and PESCAN may begin within the next year. The team has already traveled to PETER to install camera traps, check for signals of the target species, and speak with community members living there.

“We hope this project will help people to gain a new perspective on the park and its fauna and flora,” says Wesley de Andrade, who heads PETER. “We hope they will learn to understand the place inside out as a managed conservation unit.” He adds it’s important to involve the local community in the work to protect species. The park is part of a mosaic of conservation units abutting Terra Ronca Recanto das Araras Extractive Reserve, and is part of the wider Serra Geral de Goiás Environmental Protection Area.

“A conservation unit’s greatest challenge is to deal with conflicts and transform them into green business opportunities for the state and for the community,” Andrade says. Since the current administrators began bringing projects to the park and involving the people who live there, he says, they’ve been able to generate income by paying freelancers and hiring park employees. He points out that this has helped some people associate protecting the environment with financial gain and quality of life; today, some of the older community members who used to hunt and carry out illegal logging are working and see themselves as park “guardians.”

Protection through education

Cavalcanti says that species conservation won’t happen without human intervention. “Both sides win when they coexist. Most of the projects came into being with this objective, and it’s the foundation for the Suçuaranas Detetives project. We are collecting ecological data to be able to understand what the species need and then work together with the community to propose strategies and tools that will minimize the impacts [on nature].”

This cooperation between the team of experts and the community is paying off as hoped. The project team is composed of three researchers who live in Água Limpa municipality, where PEMA is located, which means they interact with the community daily, both in person and online.

Bruna Lima Ferreira, a PCMC biologist working on human-wildlife coexistence, says local recognition of the pumas seems to have improved since the project came into being. “I mean really recognized. People knew about them before, but today people feel like they have a connection with these animals. There are studies, names, stories, and people involved. They talk about ‘the puma ladies’ and the ‘friends of the pumas.’ On many occasions people spontaneously ask questions about them, tell stories, or ask us, ‘So where’s the puma now?’”

Ferreira says that evaluating the changes in people’s perceptions about the animals is complex, because the way they thought before the projects began must be considered, followed by the creation of targets and indicators for activities and monitoring.

At the start of the activities in 2023, the team went door to door in rural communities with questionnaires to evaluate people’s attitudes, emotions, beliefs and behavior.

“What we want to know now is whether all this has brought about any change in attitude about killing wildcats and larger environmental questions. We especially want to hear what people active in the region think and want in terms of conservation and coexistence with the region’s biodiversity,” Ferreira says.

One thing they expect in the coming years is to co-develop an action plan that incorporates discussions on coexistence and biodiversity conservation in the regions where the project is operating. Interviews and workshops focused on the data revealed by the original surveys will be held in the first phase, along with other topics like interaction with wildlife to find out if there have been any changes in opinion among the locals on the issue.

The team is also developing environmental education activities in schools with the very popular puma cub character Peminha, or “Little Pema.” The project also offers information to tourist groups during special events like Suçuarana Week, and has created guidebooks on species native to the region. The researchers are now hoping to expand the project to more parks. Next will be Águas do Paraíso State Park (PEAP), also in Goiás, where camera traps have already been installed and a jaguar was even sighted for the first time in August 2024.

When Pema the puma was captured in PEMA the park, the researchers realized that he’d already been seen on the Raposinha do Pontal Project’s cameras in Corumbaíba, on the other side of the Corumbá River. He spent some time in the park, swam across the river, and then loitered in the rural area, where he fathered at least one litter of cubs. Pema then disappeared from the cameras, and his collar stopped working. “Could he have been killed?” was the question that echoed among the monitoring team. Then, nearly a year later, Pema appeared in a social media reel posted by a farmer in Pontal. A few months later, Pema returned to the park he was named after. Predators at the top of the food chain are indicators of a healthy ecosystem, and with respect and good neighborly conduct, there’s room for everyone.

 
Banner image: Pema the puma, who lives in Atlantic Forest State Park, also known as PEMA, in Brazil’s Goiás state. Image courtesy of PCMC.

This story was first published here in Portuguese on April 9, 2025.

Citation:

Cavalcanti de Azevedo, F. (2017). Ecologia da onça-parda: Interações de um predador de topo em um agroecossistema (Doctoral dissertation, Federal University of Viçosa, Viçosa, Brazil). Retrieved from https://locus.ufv.br/items/214846fa-c855-43c9-bdff-d133ffeb494c