WILDLIFE
Rehabilitation
&
reintroduction
Preservation
&
Ecology
WILDLIFE
Protection, Conservation and Ecology
- The situation in Brazil
- Destination of rescued wildlife
- Buying a wild animal
Managing species of all kinds means to work for their preservation and recovery. Managing ecosystems means to care for a balance between biotic communities and their environment.
Wildlife management must follow scientific principles and apply methods that will allow animals to stay within natural environmental characteristics - or the closest possible - and to eventually reintegrate them to their original habitat.
However, wildlife holding facilities are almost inexistent and thus overcrowded in Brazil, which represents a huge problem in combating wildlife traffic. Fiscalization and confiscation actions do not happen as often as they should, as authorities have no destination for the rescued animals -- and lack of repression is an invitation to crime.
More than 80% of the rescued animals – most of them birds – are smuggled from the Northern and Central-Western regions in Brazil. Practically none of these animals will ever find their way back to the original habitat. Those that survive will be destined to local zoos or breeders.
EDUCATE TO PRESERVE
Normally nature and its forces create a dynamical balance which maintains and spontaneously renews natural resources on Earth – resources on which we are absolutely dependent.
In nature each animal is part of a biological chain. Taking away animals from their habitat compromises the food chain of that ecosystem with a significant environmental impact.
A permanent interaction with society in all economic groups is a main target in our projects, so that we can share information about how harmful domesticating wildlife can be – to the animal, to the person and to nature.
HOW TO BUY A BIRD
The Portuguese version of this section informs the local visitor how to contact legitimate breeders to buy a registered animal bred in captivity and not taken out of our forests.
If you live abroad and intend to by a wild bird, be sure to identify the source of that animal. Be twice as suspicious and careful if the animal is exotic. If your seller is reputable, he should offer you animals with registered band numbers, or that are microchipped or DNA fingerprinted. This way you will avoid getting involved with robbed or trafficked wildlife.
October 2027.
Faster than we could have ever imagined, many species of our fauna and flora are extinct. There is nothing left of our Atlantic and Amazon forests, epidemics devastate the planet and temperature has risen a lot in the past 25 years. Ozone holes are now irreversible.
Forests stopped weeping long ago, also did the oceans, the rivers and the seas. There is only one species that cries – the human animal. But it’s too late, he wouldn’t listen to Mother Nature’s appeals. Can he be still qualified as a rational being?
My grandson, a teenager now, comes to me and innocently asks:
“Grandpa, if animals were so beautiful as I have seen them in pictures, if they didn’t harm us humans in any way, and if they were also vital to preserve life on Earth, why did man extinguish most of them?”
For a moment I can’t think of an answer; and then, with tears in my eyes, I say to him:
“My grandson, I did everything I could. My army was very small. The day I stand before God, I will certainly stand with my head up high, for I have done my part.”
I kissed my grandson and held him in my arms.
M. Pavlenco
We don’t want stories like this to be true in 2027.