Milwaukee Public Museum

Julianna Arntzen

Why I wanted to study biology: I have always had a passion for animals and exploring the outdoors. My interest in environmental studies began after taking several courses in college and realizing that the majority of conflict stems from environmental problems.

Margay in a tree.

I propose to study the territory of at least four margay cats in a cacao agroforest and surrounding agricultural land. Ecological data for conservation of endangered margays in such systems is non-existent. After capture, margays will be radio collared and their health assessed, then their habitat and prey parameters will be collected over a 10-week period.

Dr. Michael Tewes and Julianna at trap number 6.

I am really beginning to feel at home here. My host family is wonderful, and I have also learned a few basic necessities of life here: drink lots of water-or fresco, carry a small towel with you for when you get sweaty, watch lots of Futbol, don't flush the toilet paper, wear rubber boots in the fields, eat lots of rice and beans, get up really early.

I am also teaching an informal English class for mainly children of the cacao workers: helping with homework and practicing spoken English.

Last week the Margay group (Dr. Michael Tewes-Texas A&M, Dr. Chris Vaughan-UW Madison, and Dr. Manuel Spinola, University of Heredia, Costa Rica, and myself) set eight Tomahawk traps around the cacao farm. It was very exiting talking to Mike Tewes during this process; he is a renowned small cat specialist and was very forthcoming with advice and good jokes. Have not caught any margays yet (six days of trapping), but that is normal according to Dr. Tewes. In the meantime we are collecting margay data in other ways, like going around the plantation to interview the cacao workers.

Through interviews with the farm workers we are learning a few things. Those who have been here more than two years have seen at least one margay while working, and due to their work schedules, most of these sightings were of margays resting in Cacao trees in the morning and early afternoon.

They also told us that margays had not been seen recently on the farm and are believed to remain mainly in the highlands in the rainy season (where flooding does not occur and food is plentiful).

Trapping was terminated July 7 because of severe storms and concern for the chickens used as bait. Sadly no margays were captured and radio-collared this round, however, we did entrap four possums, one very confused turtle, and gain knowledge and experience from trapping.

When trapping is attempted with live bait in the future, smaller bait would be wiser -- the breed of chickens we used grew very quickly and was not very vocal. Another issue we encountered was that there were many other food options available, like small lizards, birds and rodents.

After returning to the U.S., this data will be analyzed at the UW Department of Wildlife Ecology during fall 2007 as a thesis project.