Scientists Try to Save Brazil’s Exotic Animals : Zoos Given Vital Role as Destruction of Amazon Forests Imperils Wildlife

Racing against time, American scientists are training Brazilian zookeepers to save exotic animals threatened by immediate extinction as the Amazon jungle is hacked and burned away.

“In another generation or two, even if we can no longer see these animals in the wild, with luck we might still be able to see them in captivity,” said Dr. Chris Wemmer of the Smithsonian Institution, based in Washington.

“The stakes are very high in Brazil,” said Wemmer, 45, in an interview at Sao Paulo zoo. “There’s a great richness of wildlife, but the forest is being cut down so fast it’s creating a unique problem.”

Zoos Seen as Guardians

The Smithsonian is focusing on Brazil as part of a worldwide drive to educate zookeepers. It wants zoos to become guardians for many species that mankind will otherwise exterminate.

Wemmer is assistant conservation director at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo Park at Front Royal, Va., which participated in the saving of at least one animal, the beautiful golden lion tamarin, from the brink of extinction.

The silky-haired, squirrel-sized monkey lives in Brazil’s coastal Atlantic forest. But the forest has virtually disappeared, plundered for firewood and farmland.

The tamarin dwindled to a few dozen before American and then European zoologists set up an international breeding program. Now the tamarin is back up to a safe level, at least in captivity, and zoos have released some families into a reserve north of Rio de Janeiro.

‘The Pot of Gold’

“That’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, to reintroduce a species,” Wemmer said.

But that operation involved just one species and major international zoos. If a significant number of threatened Amazon species are to be saved, Brazil’s own 60-plus zoos must do the job.

Building on earlier Smithsonian programs in Thailand and Malaysia, Wemmer spent a month teaching Brazilian zookeepers how to control breeding and establish a solid gene pool for each vanishing animal.

“Some animals that are extremely rare in American zoos are commonplace here, so no real effort is being made to save them,” Wemmer said.

Forests and scrublands are disappearing so fast that local zoos receive a constant supply of rare beasts. Farmers often raise them as pets, then donate them to zoos when the animals grow and become difficult to handle. This plentiful supply creates a false sense of security for zookeepers.

‘Species Will Vanish’

“But in 10 or 15 years this flow will dry up, and if nothing is done now these species will vanish,” Wemmer said.

At the top of the list is a brilliant blue parrot called the hyacinth macaw, a bird that fetches $6,000 or $7,000 in the United States.

Just 1,000 or 2,000 remain, Wemmer said. But because they still seem plentiful in Brazil only a couple of local zoos have tried to mate them.

Other top worries from the jungle and Brazil’s grassland and swamp regions are the giant ant-eater, the giant otter, another member of the parrot family called the gold conure and the maned wolf, a curious animal that has evolved stilt-like legs for striding through tall grasses,

Each of these species probably numbers in the low thousands.

Anna Guttemberg, ecology director of the Sao Paulo-based International Union for Animal Protection, said Brazil’s natural abundance deludes people.

“We act like it will go on forever, more fertile land, more animals,” she said.

Amazon Situation Critical

The situation in the Amazon is most critical. Huge areas are being flooded behind hydroelectric dams. Unlicensed lumberjacks rip swaths through virgin forest, uncontrolled gold prospecting kills entire rivers with mercury poisoning, widespread burning destroys thousands of square miles each year and haphazard colonization brings hordes of peasants into close contact with wildlife.

“Often these peasants shoot anything that moves, be it a rare animal or an Indian,” Guttemberg said.

There is also a clear commercial interest for smugglers in making species as rare as possible.

“The profit on a live animal or on skin, teeth or claws becomes greater with rarity,” she said.

Brazilian law bans the sale and export of endangered species and police make occasional well-publicized seizures. However, Guttemberg said, the government generally seemed little interested in wild animals.

She praised the Smithsonian program but said more international pressure is needed to save the Amazon and its animals.

“Brazilian nature lovers can’t do it by themselves,” she said. “The Amazon is a heritage of all mankind.”

Wemmer said he will ask the U.S. government and private foundations to fund a zoo program.

“Half a million dollars, even $100,000 a year, could make a real difference,” he said. “It would help teach zookeepers and set up computerized breeding records.”