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Rewilding Earth Podcast
Episode 157: Jaguar Rivers Project – South America’s First Continental Wildway with Sebastian Di Martino
00:45:17
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- [00:03]
Sebastian DiMartino
The jaguars healthy populations are mostly in the Amazon and also in Pantanal, in the border between Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. But in most of the other places, jaguars are completely gone or they remain in isolated populations, like islands of jaguars, that they have very low connectivity with other populations. If we don't manage also these populations, if we don't create new ones close to them, then they will disappear.
- [01:06]
Narrator
You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast.
- [01:09]
Jack Humphrey
I'm your host, Jack Humphrey.
- [01:14]
Narrator
The jaguar is a powerful icon of the Americas, but it's easy to forget the breathtaking enormity of its historic domain. Imagine a single predator whose range stretched unbroken from the vast grasslands of Argentina all the way to the north rim of the Grand Canyon in the United States. Over the last few centuries, that vast interconnected world has been shattered, leaving jaguar populations fighting for survival in isolated fragments of habitat.
- [01:40]
Jack Humphrey
But what if we could start stitching.
- [01:42]
Narrator
That world back together? What would it take to dream on a continental scale? My guest today, Sebastian DiMartino, conservation director at Rewilding Argentina, is doing just that. He and his team are not only achieving incredible success on the ground, but having restored a thriving population of wild jaguars to the Ibera wetlands. They're now scaling up that vision dramatically. Their new ambitious plan is called the Jaguar Rivers Project, a visionary initiative to reconnect ecosystems across nearly 1 million square miles. The project aims to use South America's great river systems as natural corridors, allowing jaguars to once again roam between Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Today, Sebastian shares the incredible story of bringing jaguars back from the brink. The on the ground strategies for restoring entire ecosystems, and how this continental vision can become a reality. It's a powerful story of hope, big thinking, and the hard work required to heal nature's wounds.
- [02:44]
Jack Humphrey
Sebastian, thanks so much for being on the Rewilding Earth podcast today.
- [02:48]
Sebastian DiMartino
Okay, you're welcome. I am really happy to be with you again.
- [02:52]
Jack Humphrey
This is really cool. I have big plans for this episode because you are here to talk continental scale conservation. And the Rewilding Institute really loves big conservation visions. As I know Tompkins Conservation, Rewilding Argentina, and all the others who are doing great work in your vast region are fond of as well. So let's start with a little bit of background and how we arrived at.
- [03:16]
Narrator
This big, recent, wonderful announcement.
- [03:19]
Sebastian DiMartino
Okay, so I work for Riwali in Argentina. It's an Argentinian nco. I am the conservation director, and right now I am talking to you from Ibera. This is our oldest and maybe more ambitious project in Argentina. We have many different Parts of the country. But here is where we started with the tonkins that Julius has mentioned with Doug and Chris. Exactly. The ranch that I am now, that now is part of the Ibera national park, is the first ranch that the Tompkins bought at the end of the 90s. They had already the idea of bringing back the jaguar. This is where Everything started almost 27 years ago. Now. This is where we are running the first and only reintroduction project for Jawars in, in the world so far. And it's been a really successful one actually. We started from zero some years ago and now we have a population of at least 40 wild jaguars that are breathing very well. The population is growing fast, so that is kind of making us thinking on changing the scope of our work.
- [04:37]
Jack Humphrey
All right. Is this the southernmost jaguar habitat?
- [04:41]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, right now it's the southernmost population of jaguar jaguars in the world, Ibera. Although the jaguars, they used to go much more south, even to the northern part of Patagonia. That is like maybe almost 2,000 kilometers from here. But jaguar, they have a very tragic story all over the world. But in Argentina, particularly here in this country, the jaguars lost more than 95% of their distribution area. So we only had two breeding populations remaining in the country. One in northeast and one in the northwest. But we have two others, one in Ibera, where I am now, that now is the southernmost population. The other breeding population that we have now is the one that we are restoring in El Impenetrable. We are trying to recover jaguar's population in the southern border where we have a story similar to the one that you have in the northern border of the jaguar in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas on the southern states of the.
- [05:46]
Jack Humphrey
U.S. so for anyone who's driving a car right now, save this for later. But anyone who's not, pull up a map and really take a look at what Sebastian just said in the southernmost and northernmost. And we're talking about an enormous area.
- [06:01]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, well, jaguar habitat is really very extensive and is very diverse. I mean, jaguars, they adapt to almost all the environments because you can find them in deserts or almost deserts like Patagonia or tropical rainforest like the Amazon. You can find them at the sea level or elevations of several thousand meters in places that are extremely hot, like El Impenetrable. Or in places like Arizona, where you have one of the few pictures or maybe the only one of a jaguar walking in the snow. The jaguars healthy populations are mostly in the Amazon and also in Pantanal, in the border between Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. But in Most of the other places, jaguars are completely gone, or they remain in isolated populations, like islands of jaguars that they don't have connectivity at all, or very low connectivity with other populations. So if we don't manage also these populations, if we don't create new ones close to them, then they will disappear in the next years also. So we have a lot of work to do. What we are doing here in Argentina is tiny, if you think on that scale. But at least we are having good results that can be applied in other parts of the former range of jaguars or even in the actual range of jaguars.
- [07:39]
Jack Humphrey
Can you tell us how many jaguars are in the breeding program?
- [07:42]
Sebastian DiMartino
We are running two projects in Argentina. One in Ibera that I was mentioning and where I am now, and the other one in Limpenetrable. Ibera is like the wet Chaco forest. It's also a subtropical grasslands with some forest. It's a place that is kind of similar to Pantanal. And then the Impenetrable is a dry forest, is a dry Chaco forest. In Ibera, we started from zero. The jaguars went extinct here. In the entire Corrientes province, where Ibera is located, is one of the 24 Argentinian states. In this entire province, jaguars went extinct in the 50s, so more than 70 years ago. So here we started from zero. We started a breeding program. Then we continue with translocation of wild jaguars, some that came from Brazil, some others from Paraguay. So the project was evolving. It started as a project, breeding captivity in special conditions to release the calves because the breeders that come from captivity cannot be released because they are too used to humans. But we raise the calves in special conditions. So those ones, they were ready to be released. And then we managed to bring some wild jaguars from Paraguayan, from Brazil. They were wild jaguars, but wild jaguars that for some reason they ended in captivity because they were in very bad conditions, because they were orphans. So it's not really a conservation translocation, because it's not that we could capture wild jaguars and then bring them to Argentina. That is something that now we started to do. So in Ibera, we started from zero, as I was saying. And now we have a breeding population of jaguars with 40 jaguars living in the wild. At least 40 that we recorded. Maybe they are up to 45, something like that. So, yeah, it's been a great success. The first jaguars that we released here was in January 2021. So it will be five years next January, So not a long time ago. And then in El Impenetrable, we had some jaguars but only solitary males, the same situation that you have in the southern United States. Solitary males, usually young males that disperse from breeding populations that sometimes are tens of kilometers away, sometimes hundreds of kilometers away, because they can walk a lot. And in Impenetrable, it's not really a reintroduction project. It's more a supplementation project in which we are releasing females. So we started to release females one year ago. Two days ago we released the fifth female of the project. So now we have five females and three males living free in that area. The males are wild ones. And on July this year, we recorded the birth of the first a cab on that population after more than almost 40 years. Because the last record of a wild female in the Chaco region of Argentina is more is like 35 years old. So it's been a long time since we didn't have females. So yeah, one is our introduction project that we started earlier, so we have a much bigger population, although we started from zero. And the other one in Impenetrable, we started later breeding these wild males with captive females and then releasing the calves. And then what we are doing is since the Ibera population is growing so fast and is growing so much, we are translocating wild jaguars for the first time from Ibera to Impenetrable, trans capture wild jaguars and to be released wild females to be released in El Impenetrable. We did this with two females already and we plan to do it with more. So I think if this goes well and is going well so far, to recover jaguar populations will be much faster, much easier, less expensive. So we will be able to give a bigger scale to jaguar restoration. Because breeding them in captivity, getting the breeders, training the calves to capture live prey is very time consuming and it's very expensive. So if we want to really recover jaguar's population in a big scale, we need to switch to wild to wild translocation. That is what we are doing now. So that's why we are so happy with these first two wild females that we caught in Ibera and we release in El Impenetrable.
- [13:01]
Jack Humphrey
I used to work on the, the Mexican wolf reintroduction program in the 90s. And I learned right off the bat that one of the biggest concerns was having enough genetic diversity. It's still a very big concern about whether enough genetic diversity is available to the population. But it doesn't sound like it's quite that nearly that bad here for you. Even though you mentioned starting from zero in places and just two breeding pairs. When people started thinking about Conservation. Can you explain why that is?
- [13:33]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, it's a. Of course, if you have the chance to start with a big number of founders, you should do that. But sometimes it's not possible. It's not possible because of many reasons. Sometimes because there are no individuals left. There are many restoration projects for many species that started with one female or one male because that was what was left in the entire world. I don't know many bird species, like the Chatham Island Robin is a species that was recovered for just one female, or the Mauritius Kestrel is a species that was recovered from one male. So if you have many males, it's much better, but sometimes you don't have it. And with jaguars, of course, there's a much bigger number of individuals that you can have. But sometimes, especially with a big predator, it's not that you can release many at the same time because you need to monitor them really close. Sometimes it's not easy to get permits to release a large number of JWAs, but if you start with a small number, of course it's worse than starting from a bigger number of founders. But it's not a problem that you cannot solve. And what we are doing is we started with a relatively small number of founders, but we are monitoring the genetic variability of the founding populations. And now we are also adding to that analysis the jaguars that are burning in the wild. And really we have a high degree of genetic variability here, even though we started with a small number of founders. It could happen that you don't have that high genetic variability, but if you don't have it, then you can release some extra jaguars to increase that genetic variability. For example, when our population started to grow, jaguars were breeding so well. We were also really lucky because the first calves that were born were mostly females. So that's why our population here in Nibera grew up so fast. But we started to do this genetic analysis and we said, okay, maybe we don't need to release any more jaguars because of demography, because the population is growing really fast. But maybe we need to release some to increase or to maintain the genetic variability. But really with the results that we have, we don't have that need also. But we need to keep monitoring that the genetic variability of jaguars in the long term, maybe some decades. And if we find a problem, then we can solve it. So most of the technical issues can be solved. And they are not the most difficult issues when you want to bring back a species. The most difficult issue when you want to bring back a species like the jaguar is how to build social and political support. Then genetics, sanitary issues, from where you get the founders, all these are kind of things that are complex, but not the most difficult one. One thing that I always said to the colleagues in the US that are pushing for the reintroduction of shower is I can give you advice, or we as a group can give you advice on how to manage genetics, how to manage sanitary issues, how to capture jaguar, what are the anesthesia protocols that is the same everywhere. The thing is how you deal with local people to build social support and with politicians to build political support. And that is kind of really different from one country to another or even from one region to another inside the same country.
- [17:44]
Jack Humphrey
Anytime I hear you or Chris Tompkins or someone else talk about how you move jaguars around, and you just did mention permits, but it was the first time I've. I think I've ever heard you or Chris say anything about permits. And the only thing we in the United States can think about is the political maze and resistance. And I mean, just the Mexican wolf reintroduction program. I think about all of the hurdles that had to be politically and culturally in the communities overcome to. To do what we did. And we get very jealous when we hear you guys talk about how you just move jaguars around and do all this. I know it's not that easy, but, yeah, from America, it seems so much easier what you're doing there than it is here. And it's the social political problem. It's not anything else. Nobody's really intimidated by the physical part of Jaguar reintroduction. It's just the political landscape is really, really hard to navigate.
- [18:47]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, exactly. Also, in the US reintroductions are made by the government. I mean, the NGOs, what they do is they push the government to do the reintroductions. But here in Argentina, like in many countries, governments are weaker than in the US for example. They don't have the capacity. So they rely on NGOs for doing this. And I think that is, for me, it's much easier to run a reintroduction project inside an NGO that. To do it or to be done by the government. So that's one big difference.
- [19:27]
Jack Humphrey
Chris made this very clear in her episode. It almost seems like you put more work into community and politics and working with governments than you do with the actual reintroduction and breeding program. And laying that groundwork is so incredibly important to the success of what you have done and what you are about.
- [19:49]
Sebastian DiMartino
To do, not with the jaguar, but with some other reintroduction projects that we Work inside national parks. Sometimes it's more difficult to get the approval from the federal government, from the national park administration. So we start to do the project in provincial jurisdiction, that sometimes they are more proactive toward these projects. And then it's like the same. We start to work in the provincial jurisdiction, but then you have an impact in the national park that is not far away from there. As you manage all the technical aspects, then you need to try to figure out how to deal with social and political issues. In Argentina, we did it through the economy because we are a third world country. There's a great need of job creation and development, especially in these areas like Ibera and El Impenetrable, that are very marginal people. They have some cattle, but it's just subsistence things. And most of the people, they cannot survive if they don't have the subsidies from the government. So when we start all these projects, we try to bring also a new economy to these areas that is mostly based on nature tourism and wildlife watching done by locals. So that's why we create big parks open to the public, because locals, they don't have land in which they can do these activities. Locals can become guys that are very good guys because they know the territory, they know the wildlife, they know how to track it, but they don't have a place where to do these activities. So if you provide them with a public park, with public use, infrastructure open to the public, then they can start to run their own business, and they become like entrepreneurs. And you start transforming these areas, like Ibera or El Impenetrable into tourism destinations. And the tourists, they start to come, and they need guides to see wildlife, and they need places to stay, and they like to buy handicrafts, and they like to eat local dishes, local food. So it's like we create a new economy. So the jaguar, the park, and all the wildlife that is coming back is seen as an opportunity for job creation. And people understand that really well in the territory. So that's how we build social support. The jaguar is now an opportunity here. It's not a problem anymore.
- [22:30]
Jack Humphrey
That's incredible just to hear those words, because I don't know how, in my most optimistic days, how quickly I can arrive at feeling that that will happen in the near term or long term in the United States sometimes because of how hard it is to do everything here. But you have so much momentum of successes, I think that it feels like you guys just have a wind at your back. Which brings us to what? What else can we do? And Chris alluded to it in her episode. But she didn't spell out exactly what she was talking about. None of us really knew until you guys made the announcement September 25th that you're working on the Jaguar Rivers Initiative. This project is to restore, protect, connect ecosystems through the heart of South America, covering nearly 1 million square miles, Twice the size of Alaska. That's. Yeah, you guys. I mean, that's what I mean when I say you. You seem to have a wind at your back, because to think that big, to dream that big, and then to put it in action, and to think that you can get four different countries to agree and. And all of that, that means you guys are really feeling it because there's.
- [23:45]
Sebastian DiMartino
A need to do that. And we were talking that we are building this new population of jaguars in Ibera and El Impenetrable. But although the projects are successful, one, they are isolated. I mean, it's like we are creating like another island of jaguars. And the closest breeding population to Iberia is in the northeastern part border of Argentina. That's the Iguazu area, where we have like 80 Jaguars. But it's another island of jaguars, completely isolated, and they are like 400 kilometers away. I mean, we are shortening the distances, but still it's kind of far away for a jaguar to disperse from one place. But of course, with these two new populations in Iberani penetrable, we are, like connecting the north eastern and northwestern remaining. The two breeding population that were remaining in Argentina that were like 1500km apart. Now we have Impenetrablia and Ibera in the middle. So these distances are shorter, from 300 to 400, sometimes 500 kilometers, but still a long way. And all these four populations, they are connected through rivers that jaguars use as corridors, as highways. But the problem is that the distance is still too far and that there are many threats in the middle. So it's very difficult for Jawar from one of these springy population to another without being killed. And we saw that we share these rivers with Paraguay, with Bolivia, and with Brazil, and they have the same problems. They have islands of jaguars along the rivers that are not connected or very bad connected with others. So we said, okay, we need to start thinking about connectivity. And mostly because the jaguars that are leaving Ibera, because we have some males that are starting to disperse, they use the rivers to walk along to other places. But the problem is that they walk. They walk, and they don't find another breeding population usually. So we need to create along the rivers like stepping stones where jaguars can stop a place where they can stay while making the journey from one big breeding population to another. And then we need to work a lot with coexistence along the river. Because in Ibera and in penetrable, as I said, we work to change the economy. These were places that were dominated by cattle ranching. And in an economy that is dominated by cattle ranchings, the jaguar is a problem. A problem that you can coexist with, but still a problem. But now that these places, the main economy is nature tourism and wildlife watching. The jaguars are an opportunity, but you cannot have tourism in every place that we want to restore. So we need to work a lot with coexistence with cattle ranching. And it's possible. I mean, there are good examples in pant with coexistence between jaguars and cattle. So our new project that is like at least 20 years vision, that is how this population of jaguars that were remaining, this breeding population of jaguars that were still remaining, or the new ones that we are creating, how we connect them. And it's not only jaguars, it's many other animals.
- [27:21]
Jack Humphrey
I was going to ask you about that. If somebody was just tuning in and they're a layperson on conservation rewild and they look at past episodes of this podcast, they'll notice that we've talked a lot about jaguars and other large predators. Can you talk a little bit more about why we focus on those things? Are we really just completely tunnel vision on jaguars or is there a bigger conservation purpose?
- [27:47]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, exactly. No, of course, jaguars is like very charismatic. It brings a lot of attention to people. But here in Ibera, we are reintroducing 10 different species that went extinct. Jaguars, ocelots, other carnivores like ocelots or giant otters. But we are also introducing bird species like the bird face curacao and the red and green macabre and herbivores like the collared peccary or the pampas deer, or the giant anthital big mammal that eats ants, insects. And all these species, all individuals from all these species, they are starting to live Ibera because the populations are growing and the young ones, they need to find other places. And most of them use rivers to move along. So it's not only the jaguar, but the jaguar is like the symbol of this restoration. I was talking to you before we started to record the podcast in Ibera. It's like the jaguar introduction is almost done. I mean, we don't have a need to release more animals because of demographic reasons. So our work is switching to Mostly a survey to monitor the genetic variability that really is doing really well. And then we are doing a lot of work in trying to assess the ecological impact of the jaguar in this area. That is incredible. How the prey abundance and behavior is changing, how the vegetation is changing, how carbon capture and sequestration is changing, how mesopredators like foxes abundance is changing and how that has an impact on. On the population of very endangered grasslands birds that we are suffering high predation rates of eggs by foxes. So it's like the jaguar is a symbol for the corridor or a charismatic species, but really it's a species that brings health to the ecosystem in many other ways. So it's not only about recovering the jaguar, it's recovering other species that have other introduction process, but recovering the ecosystem as a whole. Yeah, ecosystem that was degraded but now is kind of healthy again.
- [30:22]
Jack Humphrey
I love that idea of Ibera, you know, just being. In some ways there's some mission accomplished situation there. Like it's hard to even say those words because it's so weird to hear them. Yeah, it's never the case in almost every other case. But in this case, you guys have been at work for so long and I want to highlight that because an enormous amount of work has been done. And this did not just pop up yesterday. As you said early on, Doug and Chris started on this quite a long time ago. I know Doug would be just so excited to see the progress that's been made and the bold, bold vision for what's next. And I'm really glad to see a map attached to what Chris Tompkins was talking about in her interview when she started talking dreamily about the north, you know, and the rivers. And she said many times, big, bold vision or it's not even worth it. Just you have to think super big. And here it is. And for everyone listening, this is definitely screams for a map. So come to rewilding.org pod and look for episode 157 with Sebastian and you will be plied with all kinds of extra credit on this episode, including this big, beautiful map that is before me now for the Jaguar Rivers Initiative and other resources. You guys have probably the best, most extensive and thorough resources packed for publicity and for background that I've ever received from anyone on any topic. It's extensive what you guys sent out. And so all of those photos and maps and everything will be at rewilding on episode 157. Check it out for extra credit. Yeah, I had a question from someone you know here at the Rewilding Institute. She wants to know how are the giant river otters doing? You just very, very recently did a one of a kind reintroduction with giant river otters. How's that going?
- [32:22]
Sebastian DiMartino
Well, it's going well actually. I just, I was with them with the first family group that we released and then I came to do this podcast but the guys are still there monitoring them. And we are very lucky that we have Chris Tomkins here right now. So she saw for the first time the giannotars swimming free here in the Ibera in the Parana lagoon. So no, it's spectacular. I mean it's a very soft release because the giannoter is a species that went completely extinct in Argentina. So we had to bring the breeders from European countries, from European zoos. Now we have the first family group is formed by a dominant female that is from Spain, a dominant male that I think he's from Sweden or Norway. So it's also a long adaptation project, but they are doing really well. They are in a pre release pen that we open it every day. So they go out, they swim, they fish, they interact with other animals, they explore more. It's like little by little they are also building dens outside the pen. So it's like as I said, a very soft release but they are doing really, really well. And wish has been there with Chris Tompkins that she saw for the first time this family group that is living free in the waters of Argentina. Also after so many decades of extinction, the last sighting of a family group of giannotters in Argentina was in 1986. So it's like, yeah, we are trying to bring back not only the jaguar, but many other species that use rivers to connect and to disperse.
- [34:15]
Jack Humphrey
And I love that you got them from Europe, but they speak the same language. Everywhere you put an otter they know exactly what to do.
- [34:23]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, exactly.
- [34:25]
Jack Humphrey
So what do you want people to know about the future? What are we looking forward to here? And finally, how can people get to know more, learn more, stay in touch with this project and possibly even come and help?
- [34:39]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, well, I think as I said, we have some territorial projects like Ibera impenetrable. We have some others in Patagonia where we are not working with jaguars, of course, but I think Ibera is a very nice model that we learned here how to work, how to do reintroduction, how to build these new economies, how to work with governments, with local people. And we are trying to export this model to other parts of Argentina. I think our idea for the future is how to replicate these models faster and being less expensive and more efficient. Because the big challenge that we have now is how to give scale to these projects. And for doing that, we need to change a lot of mindsets. We need to change regulations. We need, for example, to move much more animals from one place to another to recover populations. And in Latin America, we don't have a culture of translocations. Animal movement is associated with illegal trafficking. So everything is prohibited. And I think that's nice if we are talking about wildlife trafficking. But now moving animals is also a conservation tool. So we cannot work by exemptions all the time. We need to adapt regulations. We need to prepare the governmental agencies to work more with translocation and restoration. We cannot work like 25 years like we did in Ibera. So if we want to have an impact, and then I think this idea of the Jaguar river initiative that we are launching together with an NGO from Bolivia, Paraguaya and Brazil, how we start to build connectivity again. Because if not, we are like creating very nice examples, very nice projects. I mean, Ibera is an immense territory, it's very big, but still it's an isolated population of jaguars. So that's the main challenges for the future, I think.
- [36:57]
Jack Humphrey
Yeah, yeah. I love the idea where you had a proving ground or several proving grounds and then it's like, all right, what are the efficiencies? Where can we make this happen faster? Also across different political boundaries, where policies are different, some cultural differences. So you have to remain in close coordination with the NGOs in each of the other countries and also grow the support there from people who would become advocates, activists, people who help on the ground with moving jaguars around and building facilities and all of that. So it's an enormous thing. But it starts with the vision. It sounds like it might be too complicated to accomplish on its surface, but this is how all big visions start. We start thinking about all of these things, right?
- [37:50]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, yeah. Even if it seems impossible, it's something, it's like a long term objective and you start walking towards that. And that's how we started. I mean, when we started Ibrahim, we were talking about bringing back the jaguar. It was like, I don't know, going to the moon or something like that. But now it's a reality. And now it's like we are seeing this project, like bringing JavaScript, kind of more natural, something that is not really terrible or complex or complicated. I don't know, it's more natural. And I think in the future connectivity and code systems, it will be like the same. Now it seems like very hard to connect all these places, rivers to avoid water from being extracted from the river. So we lose the quantity of water or quality or to build dams. But well, you need to start by doing something and then, I mean, maybe you cannot achieve everything that you dream about. But yeah, many things for sure.
- [39:00]
Jack Humphrey
What do you think about the connectivity? Like when you think about the United States, northern Mexico, Sonora, and your vision for that and your part in that, do you feel a part of it all the way to the end of its other, other end of its range?
- [39:14]
Sebastian DiMartino
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Jaguars are the ecology they say is a pan M population that is a population that is not isolated at all in its entire range. I mean, so jaguars have the potential possibility to connect from the US to Argentina. In the past it wasn't like that. All this isolation was created by us and we should solve that. We created and we can solve it. And at the beginning, of course it will be like translocations. It's impossible to have a natural connectivity across the entire Java range. I think it's completely possible, it's completely realistic that you start to recover the jaguars, that you build a breeding population of jaguars in the US Starting from these solitary males that you have in the south, south of the Interstate 10. Or starting with a reintroduction project where I think you have the best jaguar habitat but no jaguars at all north of the Interstate 10. And then of course for sure it will be like Iberau la penetrable. You will create a breeding population that is some kind isolated. And you will need to move to translocate wild jaguar from one place to another in order to maintain or increase genetic variability. But then for sure you can start thinking about how to connect naturally those populations maybe with northern Mexico, where you have very nice places like the Northern Jaguar Project or Huancalo Sojos where you have jaguar. Northern Florida, far away from the border. So I think it's completely possible. And if you do that there, if we do that this year and we start to work with the Bolivians, with the Brazilians, then yeah, for sure we can connect everything. It's like a dream. It will be in the long term, but I think it's completely possible.
- [41:21]
Jack Humphrey
I think that it's because of the work that you, your group and the other groups and Tompkins and others and all of the donors, the success that you've had has given you the ability to freely think about bigger possibilities. And it is thanks to you guys that we return to thinking really big when we Feel very constricted because we started in the Rewilding Institute and Wild Dance project in the 90s, thinking really super big, and we were coming with some wind at our back from conservation victories. And I remember the same energy that you and your cohorts have is the same energy we had back then. And then things started closing in on us and we had a lot of losses. And. And if it wasn't for things like what you guys are doing, we might forget how to think just as big as it is possible to think. And. And so I'm very excited to ever talk to anyone, you on your team or everyone that you work with, because we get a lot of energy from that and we depend on you guys to be doing such a great job at this, to keep the vision alive here when it gets difficult, especially now, politically, I think.
- [42:35]
Sebastian DiMartino
Of course, we have an incredible team. We have incredible veterinarians, ranchers, local people that join us, biologists, and they are very hard workers. Now, as I was saying, they are working with the giant otters right now in the lagoon. And of course, we have also incredible leaders and we have the example of Dan and Chris. But then I have to say that it's not so complex. It's mostly what the complexity is mostly in our brains, not in reality. So, I mean, bringing jaguars is not an easy thing, but also it's not so complex. And you in the us, you translocate way much more wild animals than we do. I mean, you have a lot of experience. You have the wolf. I mean, the reintroduction of wolves is something that we always mention when we talk about jaguar. So you are also an example and how you recover herds of bisons and elks and big horse sheep. Well, the Mexican wolves that you were mentioning. So, yeah, I think you had some problems in the past with the jaguars, but you have to overcome those problems. And you need to start thinking about doing this reintroduction project that is a lot of management, a lot of capture, a lot of translocation, a lot of anesthesia, a lot of quarantines, but it's completely done, 100% guaranteed.
- [44:10]
Jack Humphrey
Yeah. Sebastian, thank you so much for coming on. We only talked about mainly one species today, but as you mentioned, there's a lot of other work with other species that you're doing. We will have to have conversations in the future.
- [44:21]
Sebastian DiMartino
Okay. Whenever you want. For me, it's a pleasure. I've been twice in the US in jaguar habitat. And yeah, it's also incredible. For me, it's mind blowing seeing those arid landscapes and seeing of jaguars there. So yeah, I love to be in contact with people from other countries that are trying to do the same.
- [44:45]
Narrator
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