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Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 222530234

Small Wildcats in the Shadows: Highlighting the existence of Andean cat, Pampas cat, and Guigna in high human-carnivore conflict areas.

Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation (Project No. 222530234) - Andean cat - Awarded $8,500 on February 05, 2023

To develop a comunnity-based conservation project of the small Andean wildcats empowering local participation in key areas of central Chile.

We completed our awareness activities related to our new program called "Arte para la Conservación" (Art for Conservation).  We completed the first ever mural of the Andean cat at a local community site in wild mountains of Chile's capital (Santiago).   For one week, we worked with local children to increase wild cat conservation awareness in a high conflict human-wildlife area.  

In the Santiago region, we created the local group called Guardianes del Gato Andino (Andean Cat Guardians) to train local wild cat enthusiasts in ecology and detection techniques for wild cats.  The goal is to teach our volunteers to be local guides that can also monitor wild cats presence in the region.  We want them to value their heritage and protect Chile’s unique wildlife and wildcats´s habitats by taking into account threats like urbanization and mining projects.  

 

We continue our conservation activities in central Chile increasing our monitoring program in 3 big valleys that are wildcats´s habitat of our focus species. We created 3 teams of local peoplea to create a monitoring program that include 30 camera traps in wild mountains of central Chile. Our local teams have 20 local enthusiats that are checking the camera traps and spreading the word of wildcats's conservation. 

Our last activity has been key to improve wildcats's conservation awareness. For that, we created the first ever wildcats mural in the second more important city of Chile (Valparaiso). We represented in a friendly and impacting way the two small wildcat species that are surviving in the last and resilient forest of Valparaiso region. We painted with local artist a big mural of Kodkod (Guigna) and Colocolo cat (Pampas cat) in downtown Valparaiso. In addition, we started a new monitoring program for the last Kodkod that we record in the last coastal forest of Valparaiso region (picture attached). 

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