Pampa | Biomas do Brasil | Ep.4

I found something great which is this: A trail built by wild boars - they didn't exactly build it - actually it was built because they walked through this trail, check this out! [gibberish] And it ends here, there's a hole where they get in and hide. These are not Brazilian animals, they are Europeans, so they are regarded as an exotic species here in the <i>Pampa</i>.

And they are causing various damages not only to the biome, but also to agriculture because they feed off plant roots, they feed off eggs of several birds, causing the decrease in the population of these animals and of course, they compete with other native animals for food and space, such as <i>catetos</i> and <i>queixadas</i>. Another interesting detail is that wild boars arrived here in the '90s, brought here because of their meat market. But it didn't turn out so well and they escaped and spread all over Brazil - they have an astonishing breeding rate.

They really are a plague that's threatening the balance of the biome we are about to study now. Of course I'm talking about the <i>Pampa</i>, so put some blood in that eye because there's a little bit more <i>Pampa</i> in this video for you. I want to understand how the animals live here in the <i>Pampa</i>.

How do they interact with the environment? Not only current animals, but also the extinct ones. Guys check this out, Jubijubao here, lynx eyes over the southern fields!

Take a look at what I just found - not one, but two stick insects. How cool is that? Many people think they are dangerous, they are venomous, but they are harmless animals that make up for a nice camouflage in this environment formed by grasses.

Check this out, I'll squat here, see if you can spot it? You can no longer see them, you just can't, you gotta have a trained eye, eye of Jubijubao! One of the most moving things to me at this moment, is knowing that I'm standing on the same soil in which various giant mammals used to walk 20 thousand years ago.

If you were here at that time, you would be able to see giant sloths walking all over this region here. 23 feet long 16 feet tall animals. But they were truly peaceful - if there were any here now, I would come by, pet the giant sloth and stuff.

They had a gigantic tongue and spent most of their time eating the leaves of the trees they found here in the <i>Pampa</i>. The megafauna of that period, in other words, the fauna formed by giant mammals, had the Glyptodon, a VW beetle-sized armadillo, almost 10 feet long and weighing 2 tons. We can't forget to mention the Toxodon, a type of hornless rhinoceros - furthermore when Charles Darwin came to South America, he studied the fossil of these animals and pondered about how their evolution took place.

Besides the Toxodon, the Mastodon, the South American elephant also lived in this region. This fella was almost the size of a modern day Asian elephant. In order to know a bit more about these amazing animals that lived in the <i>Pampa</i> thousands of years ago, I went to the Center of Research and Documentation of <i>Alegrete</i>, where fossils of some animals of the Gaucho megafauna are on display.

♫ Check this out, the very rich material I have here to show you. For instance, here I have this piece of a giant sloth jaw belonging to the megafauna that lived here 15, 20 thousand years ago. This is just a piece of the jaw, so you can compare.

Plus, here I have other piece of giant sloth jaw and that's its tooth, only one tooth. Take a look at the size and the power of that thing. I have more stuff here, come with me!

This is just one mastodon tooth that lived around 25 thousand years ago here in the <i>Pampa</i>. Take a look at this megafauna tooth, just look at it. Compare with my hand, now I have something better, come with me!

Here I have pieces of a large armadillo that also lived here around 14 thousand years ago. First off, I have here - these are hoof plates of this big armadillo, I got one plate, two plates, three plates, so you can compare. This is the hoof plate of a modern day armadillo, the chicken-armadillo.

Do you want to see something more amazing? This is the vertebra of a megafauna armadillo that lived here in this biome. Let's compare with the vertebra of a modern day chicken-armillo.

See the difference of size. Take a look at how the animal size regressed after thousands of years. Unfortunately all these animals are extinct.

And one of the main hypothesis to explain the megafauna extinction guess what - the arrival of men in here, 12 thousand years ago. Think about it, large mammals walking throughout this open vegetation, it was too easy to find them for hunting. That's what men of that period would do, and they didn't hunt them with combat, they simply came over and set fire to everything killing all those animals.

The irony is that the animals that live in today's <i>Pampa</i> are also on the verge of extinction and again, men is to be blamed. Here in the <i>Pampa</i> there was a large biodiversity of animals, mainly birds and mammals, althought it doesn't like that now. That's because the underbrush allowed for the survival of many herbivorous animals.

Consequently, carnivorous animals as well. There are 400 known species of birds, among them we have the partridge, the <i>quero-quero</i>, the <i>caminheiro-de-espora</i>, the <i>joao-de-barro</i>, the <i>sabia-do-campo</i>, the woodpecker and the <i>ema</i>. The <i>ema</i> is considered the biggest Brazilian bird, reaching 6 feet, it's taller than me, I'm not 6 feet tall, and up to 80 pounds.

Of course this bird has wings but it's unable to fly. It's going to utilize its wings to balance its body while running. The most interesting detail about this animal, is that the males are the ones that hatch the eggs, not the females.

Did anyone else say mammals? Just so you know, there's a hundred species of these animals living here in the <i>Pampa</i>, among them we have deers, <i>guara</i> wolves, which are not seen for a long time, the <i>graxaim</i>, <i>zorrilhos</i>, ferrets, <i>buju-preto</i>, <i>tuco-tuco</i>, armadillos and <i>prea</i>. When we talk about amphibians, there aren't many of them here in the <i>Pampa</i>, there are about 50 species, although 5 of them are endemic species, in other words, they are only found in the <i>Pampa</i>.

When it comes to fish, it's the same, around 50 species - not many - however, 10 species we only found here. I just spotted here in these rocks, what we call "rock geckos", and it's very fast and hard to catch, but I promise you that there's one hidden somewhere here in this region. These geckos feed off insects and it's quite interesting because the population of these geckos increases whenever there's plenty of insects.

However, the large number of geckos end up putting pressure over the insects - there's a lot of critters eating them. The insect population decreases, there's no food for the geckos. Guess what happens.

The gecko population decreases. Now there aren't many geckos feeding off insects. What will happen to this population?

It increases! Geckos have a lot of food, they increase. A bunch of geckos eating, bugs decrease.

Decrease, increase, decrease, in other words, a very nice relation between predators and preys. The rock gecko is only one of the 90 species of reptiles found in the Pampa, whereas 10 thousand are endemic species. Unfortunately the Pampa fauna is in advance process of extinction, mainly because of the loss of habitat, hunting, and competition for food between the cattle, herbivorous native species and exotic species such as the wild boar and the European hare.

Hares were brought to the <i>Rio Grande do Sul</i>, in the '70s and '80s because someone had the brilliant idea of letting these European animals running amok here, to hunt them. It turns out that they are very fast and hard to hit, so people gave up hunting them, but they have a huge breeding rate, they spread and became a plague, just like the wild boar. These hares feed off plant roots, both native plants from the <i>Pampa</i> and crop plants, they cause a lot of damage and compete with native rodents.

Another interesting detail is that some farmers bought hound dogs to catch the hares, but they are so fast that the dogs weren't able to catch them. When it all begun, someone would say <i>"Go catch the hare! "</i> The dogs would go after them but couldn't catch any.

After a while, you told the dog <i>"go, catch the hare"</i> and they looked at you and just wouldn't move. The were like <i>"dude, do you think I will waste my time? "</i> A number that scares me a lot, is that the <i>Pampa</i> biome today, is the second most damaged of Brazil, second only to the Atlantic forest.

54% of the original canopy of this biome was destroyed and one of the activities that most contributed to this number is the livestock, because this a region of extensive livestock, where the cattle runs free and of course, you need a pasture area. Not only this pasture is natural, check this out, come with me! Come with me!

This green area you see here in front of me, this is pasture that was planted by a human being. This is not part of the <i>Pampa </i> biome, so think about it: We had a wild biome before, natural, as it should be, and then you suddenly remove all that biodiversity to put only one vegetal species that's supposed to be food for the cattle, plus, bear in mind that livestock activity wastes a ton of water and cows emit methane into the atmosphere during their rumination process, contributing to global warming. It's worth mentioning that extensive livestock, in other words, the one in which the cattle occupy giant areas, is done here since colonial times.

Besides, Brazil has the largest commercial bovine livestock of the world. So think about the pressure that this economic activity exerts not only in the <i>Pampa</i>, but also in other Brazilian biomes. You need space not only to farm the animals, but also space to seed vegetal species that will provide ration for them.

♪ Another impact related to livestock took place in the Pampa in 1950, due to a grass species from south Asia known as <i>annoni</i> grass, which was brought here to serve as food for the cattle. After some time they found out that this plant has a low nutritional value, in other words, it wasn't good food for the animals. But it was too late, the <i>annoni</i> grass spread throughout the Pampa, due to its high potential of reproduction and adaptation and excessive seeds, stealing the place of native grass species, causing a huge decrease of the vegetal biodiversity.

Now check this out, I have here two examples of messes made by men within a couple yards. On this side, there's the <i>annoni</i> grass, spread all over it - step aside, step aside - check this out! Another grass species that's not native from the <i>Pampa</i> and was brought here to serve as food for the cattle.

Sure, we can't simply go nuts here and say <i>"gee, we need to save the nature, so let's end the livestock",</i> Livestock is extremely important to Brazil's economy, but we can put pressure over the rural farmers so that they adopt more sustainable strategies to curb the impact on the environment they are practing their economic activity. For instance, in this ranch over here, we have extensive livestock - cattle running free across a huge area. But that's not a lot of cattle, they are few individuals.

That of course, will bring less stress to the <i>Pampa</i> biome, something else they do here and I found awesome, is a rotary field system - they bring the cattle to one place for a while, they feed there, and when the place is exhausted they pull the cattle, isolate the area and let it recover, let the vegetation grow again. That's a nice strategy so we can practice the economic activity and at same time preserve the <i>Pampa</i> biome. Another activity that causes deep impact to the <i>Pampa</i> is monoculture, in other words, the farming of only one species of plant within a large area.

That ends up exhausting the soil and forcing the farmer to deforest a new area. Here in <i>Rio Grande do Sul</i>, we have mainly the monoculture of soy, rice and grapevines. Regarding the soy, it's worth mentioning that 80% of its production is utilized to make animal ration, which many times will serve to feed off animals that aren't even here, animals that are in China.

The farming of exotic species such as the eucalyptus, which was brought from Australia to be utilized in the production of cellulose and paper, also puts the Pampa at risk, they are plants that decrease biodiversity, because they are farmed in areas that used to be occupied by hundreds of vegetal species. I believe that after these two videos, you have realized how much the <i>Pampa</i> is endangered. Nowadays, only 3% of the biome is protected in conservation parks such as this one here, which works like some kind of library of life, preserving the native species of the <i>Pampa</i>.

Remember that today, less people have access to fresh air, to natural beauties, to fresh water. More people have lost touch with nature. Of course, they have their quality of life diminished.

It's also worth mentioning, that here beneath my feet there's the <i>Guarani</i> aquifer, with water of great quality for consumption. In a world that suffers more and more over the lack of fresh water, this is worth more than gold. Think about it!

All in all, needless to say that was a treat to be here with you, a big hug, bye! <b>Subs: <i>msfreelancer</i></b> http://tinyurl.