Pantanal | Biomas do Brasil | Ep.2

What's up guys! Now I'm here sharing with you a very special moment of my life. I'm standing 16 feet from the biggest feline of Brazil, and world's third - right behind the tiger and the lion.

Do you know who am talking about? The jaguar. It's right here!

It just finished eating an alligator. This animal has one of the most powerful bites that exist - twice stronger than the lion's. And here where I am, the best place in the world to be able to observe this beauty of nature.

Of course I'm talking about the Pantanal, which we will soon be addressing in this video lesson, so you already know MrJaguar. I'm gonna take it easy here, put some blood in that eye because now there's a little bit more of Pantanal for you! Whenever we talk about fauna, obviously we have a huge biodiversity here in the Pantanal, one of the largest of the planet.

Here is definitely one of the best places in the world to observe animals. Here you have not only biodiversity of species, you have quantity of individuals, 45 thousand bucks, 5 thousand jaguars, 5 thousand blue macaws, 3 million alligators, there's a lot of animals. Another detail is that most of these animals are not endemic to the Pantanal, so we're able to find them in other Brazilian biomes, such as the Amazon, the Atlantic Forest, the <i>Cerrado</i>, but there's a catch: given the poor degree of preservation, there are many animals you are no longer able to see in the Amazon, you still are but very few, a few in the Atlantic Forest, a few in the <i>Cerrado</i>, whenever you get here, there's a bunch of them.

The Pantanal works like a "Noah's Ark", having samples of highly endangered species. That's why we have to protect this, which is one of the last ecological paradises of Brazil. This large number of animals occurs due to the soil and the water of the Pantanal, which have plenty of nutrients.

Making it possible for the development of a high number of plants that are source of food and shelter for many species of these animals. When it comes to fish, do you think that is there much or little biodiversity of these animals in the Pantanal? Just take a look around!

There's plenty of water, a lot of vegetation that produces food for these animals, fruits, seeds that fall in the rivers, they feed the fish and of course, these are rivers that have plenty of sediments, rivers that have a ton of nutrients and all of it will favor an elevated number of fish here in the region. An interesting detail, is that the <i>Piracema</i> happens here in the Pantanal, which is a phenomenon in which the fish swim upstream, they migrate swimming against the current during the flood season, in order to get here. Because at that time when the river is deep and has plenty of sediments, is much easier for these fish to lay their eggs and procriate with safety, of course, the more sediments I have in the river, the more nutrients I get, hence there will be much more food supply for the juvenile fish that just hatched, thanks to the <i>Piracema</i> phenomenon - furthermore, whenever we have the <i>Piracema</i> here in the Pantanal, fishing is forbidden, so that the growth of fish population is respected, not only in the Pantanal, but in the whole hydrographic basin of the Paraguay river.

When it comes to amphibians, as crazy as it seems, the biodiversity of these animals is not that high, around 70, 75 species of frogs and toads. Why do I find the biodiversity of these animals so amazing here? Because they like this right here, this environment, they like moisture, now of course there's another more encouraging data: Although their biodiversity is not high, the number of individuals of species found here, is very high.

So if you pick a frog species, you will see that there's plenty of this species - <i>cururu-frog</i>, there's a bunch of them here in the Pantanal. So although the number, the variation, the diversity of species is low, the number of individuals of this species is quite high. Now you might be asking yourself <i>"- But why there's not a lot of amphibian biodiversity?

"</i> Because we can't forget that we have a draught season here, in which most of this water will disappear and then what are they going to do? That's why the species that want to live here in the Pantanal - the amphibian species - they need adaptations in order to survive this drought season in the Pantanal. So there aren't many species that are able to do that.

The ones that are capable, will do what? When the drought comes, many of them bury themselves, others end up producing a mucus in order to protect themselves against the loss of moisture, in other words, they are adapted to survive the bad seasons of the Pantanal, for these species. Now, one slick animal here in the Pantanal, is this guy here, the Pantanal alligator.

This one here is kinda mad at me because I got too close, it's small, but they can reach 10 feet in length and the female can lay about forty eggs every year. It's estimated that around 3 million alligators live today in the Pantanal. As long as the river is deeper during this season, is hard to spot them but after the river recedes during the drought season, it's easier to spot a bunch of alligators on the riverbank with less water.

An interesting detail is that during the drought season, these animals enter some kind of dormancy we call estivation. So they lower their metabolism because the quantity of food will decrease and when the rain season starts later on, they come out of this dormancy, start hunting again, start feeding again, acquire a lot of body fat to be ready for the next drought season. Guys, check this out, how interesting this relationship we have here between the capibara and the alligator.

Both are food for the jaguar and the alligator is kinda dumb when it comes to detect the jaguar approaching, whereas the capibara is smarter. So the alligators like to stay close to the capibaras, so they are warned beforehand whenever there's a jaguar in the area and right now there's a big one nearby, and it just ate an alligator. I just found another big alligator - take a look at its size, that's a big one, look how big it is!

You gotta respect that! Besides alligators, we have other species of reptiles here in the Pantanal. It's estimated that around 200 species of these animals live here.

Turtles, various snakes - including the big and terrifying <i>sucuri</i> and since we're talking about the <i>sucuri</i>, there's no better place to find this serpent, than these flooded areas of the Pantanal, so they often stay underneath these <i>aguape</i> and it's hard for you to be able to spot them. The <i>sucuri</i> snake from the Pantanal can easily reach 16 or 20 feet in length and doesn't have venom. It turns out that when the prey gets closer, it catches the prey wrapping around and constricting the prey, actually, it kills the prey by suffocation and cardiac arrest, because the prey isn't able to breathe, as it exhales the <i>sucuri</i> tightens its grip even more.

The sucuri tightens more until you're no longer able to move the diaphragm so you end up dying. That's how the <i>sucuri</i> kills you. Of course, attacks on humans are extremely rare and hardly a <i>sucuri</i> will catch an animal too big - <i>it can eat a cow</i> - that's a lie!

Actually the <i>sucuri</i> will eat small mammals, eggs and even fish, thus it's a cool peaceful snake you shouldn't be afraid of. I'm here like <i>"come get me sucuri, where are you? "</i> - I'm not afraid at all!

The biodiversity of birds here in the Pantanal is huge, highlights for the blue macaw, which besides being beautiful is an endangered species. Another interesting detail is that many migratory birds come here because the Pantanal has many lagoons, mainly from southern South America. Of course, they come after these lagoons that have both shelter and food, furthermore, many of them choose the Pantanal for nesting.

The bird-symbol of the Pantanal is the <i>tuiuiu</i>, a bird related to storks, which can reach 5 feet in length and 10 feet in wingspan. They love to eath shallow waters fish. Given its very long legs, the <i>tuiuiu</i> manages to walk the most flooded areas searching for food, with no difficult.

Besides, its spear-shaped beak is long, which gives it great fishing agility. Guys, I have this audio of a bird known as <i>ana coca</i> - this belongs to our guide and check this out! [bird singing] It's responding right there.

Listen again! Sing away! !

[bird singing] Listen! <i>- I'm your female and I'm ready to mate! </i> I just came down here to one of these small beaches that are formed when the river starts to recede and I enjoy observing the footprints we're able to find and here we have ocelot footprints, the ocelot is also a feline and it's awesome that we didn't find jaguar footprints in here.

What does that mean? The ocelot, which is smaller than the jaguar, will stay in a place with no jaguars around. In order to avoid competition when it comes to feeding, because it would loose all the time.

Of course the mammal biodiversity here in the Pantanal is huge, because you have a lot of vegetation that provides for the herbivorous animals, which in turn provide for the carnivorous animals, such is the case of the lovely <i>ariranha</i> giant otters. The <i>ariranha</i> river otters were almost extinct over poaching, but after some protection laws were passed, the population of these mustelids has been increasing little by little. It's hard to approach these animals, as I'm doing now.

After being hunted down for so long, they learned to stay away from us. But I think they can feel the only thing I want to give them is love and protection. But actually, I'm not here in the Pantanal to spot <i>ariranha</i> - my bad, <i>ariranha</i>!

<i>- Ariranha! </i> What I want to see, is the most famous mammal here, the jaguar, after my first experience with such majestic animals, I want to repeat it, I want to be face to face with this feline. Guys, now we're in an area marked by a couple of jaguars - this type of cove here - and the couple stays here.

We just found fresh footprints of these animals. Here there's a female footprint and here I found - ouch, the male footprint is scary! Check this out, the male footprint, it's almost the size of my hand.

I kept following their tracks, it was getting too hard finding them and I almost gave up when suddenly ♪ a gorgeous male shows up in front of me. Called "jaguar", a <i>tupi-guarani</i> word that means <i>"the one that kills with a jump"</i>, they are still an endagered species due to deforestation and poaching. The jaguar skin is highly valued on the black market and unfortunately, many people are still proud of killing jaguars in this day and age.

How could someone have the nerve to kill such a beautiful animal? Jaguars are quite important to curb the population of capibaras and alligators, which are their favorite food. They are territorial animals and need large areas to be able to hunt.

♫ Many cattle ranchers from the Pantanal, have a very delicate relationship with jaguars, who eventually come over to eat a few cows. Besides eating their cows, many times they also eat their dogs, then the rancher gets angry and orders someone to kill the jaguar. Besides being an illegal activity, this is also dangerous.

It's worth mentioning that the jaguar is a very territorial animal, so it's no use killing one because another jaguar will come and take over the same territory, and still come here to eat the cows. What we have to realize, is that these cattle ranchers have to be aware that this comes with the territory. People shouldn't regard the jaguar as the enemy, many times the cattle will be stuck in the mud during the floods and die, and the guy have to account for that in the book, he also has to account for jaguar attacks, rather than taking matters into his own hands, thus, killing such a beautiful animal.

A study found that the damage caused by jaguars in the Pantanal stays around 120 thousand dollars per year. The same study concluded that they bring around 7 million dollars, of profit to the region, through ecotourism. In other words, they are worth more alive than dead.

♪ Whe we talk about environmental impact, the economic activity that causes more impact to this biome is livestock. The livestock - moreover, that famous scene of the cowboy wrangling the cattle to the highlands during the flood season, happens here. It's awesome when the river recedes, because as I said before, the soil has plenty of nutrients and quickly builds up a grass layer, pasture that will provide food for these animals.

When we talk about deforestation, it's severe in any biome, but here in the Pantanal, it's much more severe. That's because we have a system of flood and drought, and the local species are used to it. Well, when you deforest an area, all this sediment that was withheld by the vegetation is unleashed, then when the rain comes, this sediment is carried into the river and ends up causing the siltation of this river - as if you grabbed a bucket full of water and kept throwing dirt inside, that's silting, and it turns out that river silting compromises this system of flood and drought.

Just so you know, there's a region in the state of <i>Mato Grosso do Sul</i> that was so deforested, that the whole <i>Taquari</i> river ended up silted. The whole ecosystem of the region was affected and the people who deforested it were also affected, because they no longer had fish and no longer could produce pasture for their own cattle, so people don't understand that when they deforest, they are hurting themselves. There's another practice quite common in Brazil, specially when we are near the most preserved regions, which is hunting - I just found this campfire remains here, with animal bones, so many times people still going into the forests to hunt endangered animals.

Mind you, that as an animal goes extinct, it will cause a whole unbalance in the region, as long as this animal often spread the seeds of many species of plants that form the forest. And check this out: the leftovers of the animal they ate, attracted predators. Here for instance, you have the hole made by a jaguar's tooth.

So as soon as those people fled, the jaguar came along, grabbed the remains and still out there! I want to bring a <i>"philosophy of life"</i> to you, regarding the issue of building roads that cut ecological paradises such as the Pantanal. Whenever you put a back road here, it ends up being a geographic barrier for the species.

So there are species that live here and are no longer able to cross over, just because of the presence of this back road. It works like a montain that showed up in the middle of the biome, which will isolate populations unable to exchange genetic material. This type of construction decreases the genetic diversity of a biome.

That's why whenever we start this kind of enterprise, we need to give it a lot of thought, we need to foresee the impact it will cause on the local life, and surely, those animals that risk their lives to cross over might as well be run over. Thousands of animals are run over by vehicles every year, due to the presence of back roads like this one here. Anyway, the Pantanal still is the less damaged biome of Brazil - about 83% of this place still preserved - and of course, you have a biome with less than 20% of deforestation and that's a privilege for our country.

First off, this basically happens because the Pantanal is often flooded what makes difficult the agricultural development of this place, so no wonder that this is all preserved, because you can't have crops, regardless whether the soil is fertile, because when it floods the crops are finished. Another detail is that ecotourism is well developed here, it generates income and when the locals earn their money with ecotourism they help to preserve it. People don't want the jaguar being killed because their job depends on it being alive, and by the way the jaguar-watching tourism brings to this region, almost 7 million dollars per year.

And that's not a lot of money - but as long as these jaguars are more and more used to the tourists, it will be easier to spot them, hence more people will come and you have more money circulating in the region. <i>"- But that's gonna disturb the jaguars! "</i> It's better than being killed!

We have to remember that the Pantanal is the "Noah's Ark" of Brazilian biomes, in other words, several endangered species disappearing in the Amazon, in the <i>Cerrado</i>, in the Atlantic Forest, are still largely found here. That's why this place must be preserved. Today, less than 5% of the Pantanal is located inside preservation parks, which are areas created to protect a place's biological heritage.

♫ It's worth mentioning that any change you make in the Pantanal, that might alter this cycle of flood and drought, is highly dangerous, this is a highly sensitive biome and should be preserved. All in all, needless to say it was a treat to be here with you - the Pantanal is hot, isn't? A big hug, bye!

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