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Brazil's Wild Wet
AUGUST 2005
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In Learn More the National Geographic magazine team shares some of its best sources and other information to expand your knowledge of our featured subjects. Special thanks to the Research Division.
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 Did You Know?
As a Brazilian-born biologist and nature photographer, I have always made animals a part of my life. At first all I wanted to photograph were the beauties of the natural world and tell nice stories about them—the kind that everybody likes to see and read and hear. But years of driving on roads in and around the Pantanal made me start thinking of another way to promote environmental conservation besides just taking pretty photos. I was seeing beautiful mammals, birds, and reptiles closer than I'd ever seen them. But they were dead. This is how I began photographing roadkills, hoping to sensitize drivers and authorities to the silent slaughter that takes place on these roads every day.
During the wet season many animals use the roads to move about, since the surrounding land is flooded. In the drier periods, however, the situation gets even worse: The roadside ditches are the last places to dry up, providing a water source as well as a safe harbor from field and pasture fires. This is also the breeding season for most species and the high season for tourism. Consequently, vehicle traffic increases at exactly the same time animals are looking for mates and, later, giving birth. Mothers with newborns are especially vulnerable. One friend found a dead female giant anteater whose baby was still alive and hanging on to her back; another saw a female marsh deer that had just delivered a fawn, which was lying dead behind her.
It's been hard to remain indifferent while taking these roadkill photographs. Once I found an injured anteater that had been hit by a car. I contacted the Forestry Police, who rescued it, but it eventually died. Through this activity I've concluded that the death of wildlife on the roads may be playing a crucial role in the decrease of some species' populations. I see this as one of the consequences of "progress." On the BR-262, a major road in the southern Pantanal between Campo Grande and Corumbá, animal mortality rates have increased since the building of the Bolivia-Brazil Gas Duct and the opening of a bridge over the Paraguay River at the end of 2000.
When you're traveling on roads near preserved environments anywhere in the world, keep the animals in mind—for your safety as well as theirs. Respect the speed limit and avoid traveling at dusk or at night, when animals are more active and more vulnerable, since a vehicle's headlights can confuse them and cause them to freeze in their tracks. It's been sad work documenting roadkills in the Pantanal, but I hope it will raise awareness of this avoidable slaughter.
—Daniel De Granville
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Bibliography
Banks, Vic. The Pantanal: Brazil's Forgotten Wilderness. Sierra Club Books, 1991.
Cardozo, M., and others, eds. Upper Paraguay River Basin GIS Database, Expanding the Pilot Project. Ducks Unlimited, Inc., 2004. Available online at www.ducks.org/conservation/documents/
Upper_Paraguay_River_Basin_GIS_Database_Pilot_Project_I.pdf.
Charle, Suzanne. "Rivers Run Through It." Ford Foundation Report (Winter 2004). Available online at www.fordfound.org/publications/ff_report/view_ff_report_detail.cfm?report_index=463.
Earthwatch Institute. Pantanal Conservation Research Initiative: Annual Report 2003. Available online at www.earthwatch.org/conservation/pantanal_03.pdf.
Eckstrom, Christine K. "A Wilderness of Water: Pantanal." Audubon (March/April 1996), 54-65.
Emmons, Louise. "The Secret Wolf." Zoogoer (November/December 2004). Available online at nationalzoo.si.edu/Publications/ZooGoer/2004/6/manedwolves.cfm.
Gottgens, J. F., and others. "The Paraguay-Paraná Hidrovia: Protecting the Pantanal With Lessons From the Past. Bioscience (Volume 51, 2001).
Available online at www.eeescience.utoledo.edu/Faculty/Gottgens/
web%20papers/gottgens%20et%20al.%202001.pdf.
Grzelewski, Derek. "Otterly Fascinating." Smithsonian (November 2002), 100-108. Available online at www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian/issues02/nov02/pdf/
smithsonian_november_2002_otterly_fascinating.pdf.
Leland, Julie Hatfield, and Timothy Leland. "The World in a Wetland." Earthwatch Journal (October 2003). Available online at:
www.teacher.scholastic.com/activities/explorer/ecosystems/
mission_otters.asp.
McGrath, Susan. "Blue Jewels of the Pantanal." Audubon (December 2002),
74-85.
Mourao, Guilherme, and others. "Size Structure of Illegally Harvested and Surviving Caiman in Pantanal, Brazil." Biological Conservation (Volume 75, 1996), 261-65.
Pearson, David L., and Les Beletsky. Brazil: Amazon and Pantanal: The Ecotravellers' Wildlife Guide. Academic Press, 2002.
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. "Brazil Designates Privately Owned Nature Reserve in the Pantanal." Press Release (June 12, 2002). Available online at
www.ramsar.org/wn/w.n.brazil_reserva.htm.
Schnepf, Randall D., and others. "Agriculture in Brazil and Argentina: Developments and Prospects for Major Field Crops." Agriculture and Trade Report No. WRS013 (December 2001). Available online at www.ers.usda.gov/publications/wrs013/.
Swarts, Frederick A., editor. The Pantanal: Understanding and Preserving the World's Largest Wetland. Paragon House, 2000. Available online at www.pantanal.org/book.htm.
United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies and Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso Pantanal Regional Environmental Program. Inter-linkages Approach for Wetland Management: The Case of the Pantanal Wetland. (2004). Available online at www.ias.unu.edu/binaries2/Pantanal_Wetland_Report2004.pdf.
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NGS Resources
Morell, Virginia. "The Rain Forest in Rio's Backyard." National Geographic (March 2004), 2-27.
Cobb, Charles E., Jr. "Where Brazil Was Born: Bahia." National Geographic (August 2002), 62-81.
Van Dyk, Jere. "The Amazon: South America's River Road." National Geographic (February 1995), 2-39.
Elrlich, Anne H. "Brazil: Fight to the Cities." National Geographic (December 1988), 934-37.
McIntyre, Loren. "Last Days of Eden: Rondônia's Urueu-Wau-Wau Indians." National Geographic (December 1988), 800-17.
Vesilind, Priit J. "Brazil: Moment of Promise and Pain." National Geographic (March 1987), 348-85.
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