Vitória received her collar in late March. On the photo from left to right: field assistant Neto, veterinarian Gediendson Araujo, field assistant Ismael and project leader Dr. Claudia Campos. In the front row is the newest member of Programa Amigos da Onça: Vitória.

After a third and long field campaign of 45 days (!), Programa Amigos da Onça in Brazil has amazingly managed to collar a puma. This has taken a long time and the team has had to endure difficult field conditions. In total, the team has spent more than 90 days in the field in three field campaigns spanning September 2016 until now.

So, in the last days of March, a beautiful female puma named Vitória has received a GPS-collar. The name is suitable, as it means “victory”.

As a result of this success, I have now traveled to Brazil where I am currently in Petrolina preparing for field work. I am very happy that my part of the project can now get going. In the coming weeks, I will be investigating Vitória’s diet by visiting kill-sites to see her predation on wild animals and domestic animals. This will give us highly valuable information which will help us save the puma and jaguar in this area.

As a hint on the importance of the project: We can already see that Vitória has passed a farm, where the owner found tracks in the sand and, as a result, put out traps to catch her. This is unfortunately very common and shows how imperative it is to help alleviate the conflict between herders and the large carnivores. Hopefully, this is what the Program can now do.

Once again, I wish to thank everybody that has donated to the crowdfunding project! If it wasn’t for you then these next steps would not be possible.

You can read more on the Facebook page of Programa Amigos da Onça (in Portuguese but please use translate), and please click Like there to follow the work.