Biological Conservation 82 (1997) 31-39 © 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain PII: S0006-3207(97)00004-9 0006-3207/97 $17.00 + 0.00 ELSEVIER ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION OF THE JACUTINGA Pipile jacutinga IN THE ATLANTIC FOREST OF BRAZIL Mauro Galetti," Paulo Martuscelli, b Ffibio Olmos c & Alexandre Aleixo d a Wildlife Research Group, Department of Anatomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3D Y, UK bCP194, Peru[be, Sdo Paulo, 11750-970, Sfo Paulo, Brazil ¢Se¢~o de Animais Silvestres, IF, CP 1322, 01509-970, Sdo Paulo, SP, Brazil dDepartamento de Zoologia, UNICAMP, CP 6109, 13083-970 Campinas, Sdo Paulo, Brazil (Received 28 February 1996; revised version received 2 November 1996; accepted 8 November 1996) Abstract from the Neotropics (Silva & Strahl, 1991; Thiollay, The jacutinga Pipile jacutinga was formerly one of the 1994). most abundant game bird cracids in the Atlantic forest of The black-fronted piping-guan or jacutinga Pipile Brazil. Nowadays this species is vulnerable to extinction jacutinga is a medium-sized (up to 1.5 kg) cracid known due to hunting and habitat loss. The ecology of the jacu- from the moist forests of coastal Brazil, the Atlantic tinga was studied at Parque Estadual lntervales, Sdo forest, from southern Bahia to Rio Grande do Sul, and Paulo, Brazil from October 1993 to December 1995 and adjacent areas of Paraguay and Argentina (Delacour & in adjacent areas. Jacutingas were observed to feed Amadon, 1973; Sick, 1993). The species was extremely mainly on the sugar-rich fruit of 41 species. We recorded common in parts of its range until the 1940s and 1950s, a low index of abundance for the jacutinga (0.018) or when thousands could be killed over a short period c.1.7 birds/km 2 at Intervales, one of the best protected (Sick, 1993). Today this species is considered as vulner- areas within their range. Surveys carried out in the able and is listed in CITES Appendix I (Collar et al., Atlantic forest of Sdo Paulo found jacutinga populations 1994). The jacutinga's range is one of the areas in South in 14 localities. Probably < 1500 birds survive in the best America worst hit by deforestation, with only 5% (c. protected areas. The species' stronghold in southeastern 60 000 km 2) of the forest remaining today, mainly in the Brazil is in the mountains of Serra de Paranapiacaba, an states of S~.o Paulo, Parami and Santa Catarina (SOS area protected by several parks suffering from hunting Mata Atl~ntica & INPE, 1992). This region also holds and palm heart harvesting and threatened by a hydro- 43% of the Brazilian human population and its fastest- electric project. © 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd growing cities (Fonseca, 1985). Despite being one of the largest, most conspicuous Keywords: Atlantic forest, Brazil, Cracidae, diet, con- and endangered birds of the Atlantic forest, scientific servation, frugivory. information on the jacutinga's ecology, vital to its con- servation, is almost entirely lacking, what exists being "We all know that no one turns down jacutinga mainly anecdotal (see Collar et al., 1992; Sick, 1993; with rice." -- Frederico Lane, hunter, 1928. Pacagnella et al., 1994). This paper describes the results of a 26-month study on the jacutinga's ecology and a six year survey of the extant INTRODUCTION populations from the Atlantic forest of S5o Paulo state. Cracids (guans, chachalacas and curassows) are med- ium-sized to large, predominantly arboreal, gallinaceous STUDY SITE birds. The family has 50 species distributed in the Neo- tropical region and extreme south Nearctic (del Hoyo et Jacutingas were searched for in several localities in the al., 1994). Cracids are among the most important game Atlantic forest of S~o Paulo (Fig. I) during faunal sur- birds in Latin America, but are extremely sensitive to veys in existing and proposed state parks and reserves habitat disturbance and overhunting (Silva & Strahl, from 1989 to 1995. As the main aim in these surveys was 1991; Strahl & Grajal, 1991). This group also contri- simply to locate the birds, density estimates are avail- butes to most of the avian biomass harvested by hunters able for only a few localities. An ecological study of jacutingas was carried out at Correspondence to: M. Galetti, Departmento de Botanica, the Parque Estadual Intervales, a 490km 2 reserve of C.P.199, UNESP, 13506-900 Rio Claro, S~o Paulo, Brazil Atlantic forest in the Paranapiacaba range of southern 31 32 M. Galetti et al. S~o Paulo, from October 1993 to December 1995. 1970). The point counts (IPA or 'stations d'6coute') Jacutingas were studied in the Base do Saibadela were placed along eight trails of 1 km each. On each (24°14'08"S, 48°04'42"W), Sete Barras, Sgo Paulo. Ele- trail, five 'point counts' were spaced 200 m apart. At vation varied from 70 to 300m above sea level. The these points all birds heard or seen during a 20 min annual rainfall in 1994 and 1995 was 4244mm and period were recorded. At least three trails (or 15 points), 3958 mm, respectively, (with a temperature maximum of randomly chosen, were sampled each month. The index 41-42°C and minimum of 3-1 I°C). of point abundance (IPA) was calculated by dividing the The area is covered mainly by primary forest where number of contacts by the total number of points sam- the canopy can reach 35m. The most common plant pied. Transect counts were carried out from sunrise to families are Myrtaceae, Lauraceae and Rubiaceae 1100 h and any individual or flock ofjacutinga heard or (Almeida-Scabbia, 1996). The area is well protected seen was recorded as one contact. from poachers and some threatened species such as the The other method used to estimate jacutinga density blue-bellied parrot Triclaria malachitacea and the muri- (D) was a modification of the variable-length transect of qui Brachyteles arachnoides are relatively common (M. King (see Silva & Strahl, 1991): Galetti, unpublished data). There are c. 350 bird species in the reserve (see Aleixo & Galetti, in press), but only D=Z/2,W, EL two cracid species, the jacutinga and the dusky-legged guan Penelope obscura. Palm heart (the edible apical meristem) harvesting of Euterpe edulis, whose fruits are where Z = the total number of individuals ofjacutingas considered the main staple food ofjacutingas (Collar et observed on all transects, W -- the width of the transect al., 1992), is not known to have taken place and the and ~ L is the sum of the lengths of the transects. local density of E. edulis is about 500 palms/ha (Ribeiro The trails were walked in the morning and, because et al., 1993; but see Galetti & Chivers, 1995). the visibility of each area is different, the strip width was taken to be 10m on each side in Intervales (lowland primary forest), 20 m in Ilhabela (montane secondary- METHODS primary forest) and 50m in Carlos Botelho (montane primary forest, valleys and foothill). Jacutingas are Jacutingas are difficult to follow in the field, because of the relatively tame and quiet cracids (unlike Penelope spp.) rugged topography, so their abundance was estimated and it is assumed that the width established in each site based on unlimited distance point counts (Blondel et al., is reliable for detecting most of the birds. 'k.N. ~./.~ ~-,- .---° ,.-,,-. 1 o.t..,,.j .r \~.. ' "~""2"' "~'r" ' . ~"'" I S~o Paulo 12 7 9. N t 1 25~ 0 4o "" f I I~n 49' ° 48' ° 47' ° A° Fig. I. Localities in S~o Paulo state where Jacutinga still occurs: l, Ilha do Cardoso; 2, Canan6ia-Serra do Cadeado; 3, Jacupir- anga; 4, Alto Ribeira; 5, Intervales; 6, Carlos Botelho; 7, Pilar do Sul; 8, Jurupar~; 9, Tapiral; 10, Jur6ia; 1 l, Serra do Mar-Mon- gagub.; 12, Borac6ia; 13, Serra do Mar-Santa Virginia; 14, Ilhabela; 15, Serra do Mar-Ubatuba. Conservation of the jacutinga 33 The diet of cracids is usually assessed from stomach birds were recorded (density 1.7 individuals/km2). The and gizzard contents (Th+ry et al., 1992; Caziani & density of jacutingas in the lowlands was slightly less Protomastro, 1994), but as jacutingas are highly threa- than in the highlands of Intervales Park (2-1 individuals/ tened (Collar et al., 1992), diet was determined from km 2) (Mafiosa et al., 1995). At Ilhabela, 215km were feeding bouts in this study. Each bout is an observation walked from 1992 to 1994 and only eight birds were of a jacutinga or a flock eating in a fruiting tree and if recorded (0.93 individuals/km2); at Carlos Botelho the birds moved to another food source a new bout was 151 km were walked and 48 birds were observed (3.17 recorded (Galetti, 1993). Chemical analyses of 15 spe- individuals/km2). At Ilha do Cardoso, during a five- cies of fruit eaten by jacutingas (percentage of water, year study, only two jacutinga groups were observed protein, lipids, and sugar) followed Bligh and Dyer (seven and four birds). Although no census was car- (1959) and Horwitz (1975) and were carried out at the ried out in the park, the density of jacutingas there is Faculdade de Engenharia de Alimentos, Universidade likely to be 0.11 individuals/km 2, based on the island's Estadual de Campinas. area. The availability of E. edulis fruit was based on the counting of fruits of 41 tagged trees in the lowland Diet (Saibadela station) every month (M. Galetti, unpub- Jacutingas were observed eating 41 fruit species, 23 lished data). The palms were chosen from 201 random species at Intervales and another 18 in other areas points along nine trails.