Andres Rey, Argentina
Dr. Andres Rey, Conservación Patagónica, Argentina
2013 Conference Paper:
"Movement of Radio-Collared Guanacos in a Managed Population in Patagonia"
Presenter(s): *Andrés Rey, Argentina
We described location areas used by radio-collared guanacos and their association with capture and shearing structures and other natural and anthropic elements. We radio-collared 29 adult guanacos captured in a 50 km2 section in a sheep ranch of north-central Patagonia and recorded their location between February 2006 and March 2009. Most locations (95%, n=257) were within the managed section, distributed all over the area and without seasonal variation. Radio-collared females had smaller (534±101 ha) and more overlapped (52–100%) location areas than males (1413±472 ha, 18–99%). Guanacos showed no clear avoidance of capture and shearing structures though wire fences may restrict their movements.
2013 Scholar Profile:
email address(es): fitzrey@gmail.com or fitzrey@yahoo.com.ar
title or role in the organization: At this moment I lead my own conservation project but I am not working in an organization. I am collaborating with other projects, I am in the board of Conservación Patagónica ONG and I am teaching biology at a local high school.
Organization name: Andrés Rey
Organization full street address (in your local format): Paseo del Alba 19 Dpto 3
(8370) San Martín de los Andes
Neuquén
Argentina
Country: Argentina
Work phone with country and area code: mobile: 0054 0294 15 4698227
*-Main email: fitzrey@gmail.com
describe the work that your current organization does: Nowadays my conservation project is not done in an organization. My postdoctoral scholarship finished 2 month ago so I have applied for a researcher job in the National Council of Science and Technology of Argentina (CONICET) for the end of next year.
describe the history of your personal work in conservation and GIS: I was born and grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but since I can remember I was interested in Patagonia’s landscapes, flora and fauna. After deciding not to study to be a national park ranger, I started to studying biology. As an undergraduate I did not work in conservation projects but I worked at a high school as a biology teacher. After obtaining the degrees of Teacher and Biologist at the Buenos Aires University, I moved to San Martín de los Andes, a little town in northwest of Patagonia. Here I continued teaching biology and I worked for one year as the person responsible for education and tourism of the Fish Capture and Breeding Station in San Martín de los Andes, which allowed me to practice informal education. From these educational experiences I have understood that educating is as important as generating new knowledge on conservation.
Since I arrived in Patagonia, I have worked as a volunteer on private, government and ONG’s conservation projects. I have participated on the project: “Conservation and ecology of the huiña cat (Leopardus guigna) in northwestern Patagonia – Argentina” with the Licenciado Martín Monteverde, on the projects: “Management and conservation of guanaco”, on the development of native fauna diffusion material and leading conferences on guanaco conservation in the Center of Applied Ecology of Neuquén (CEAN), and as a collaborator in the “Patagonian and Andean Steppe Program” of the local Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) team.
After this experiences I became strongly interested in the biological conservation of guanaco (Lama guanicoe), considered as plague in livestock ranches, and in the development of strategies of sustainable use of them as a tool for their conservation. Guanaco was the most abundant and broadly distributed ungulate in South America, reaching 20-30 million before the European colonization, and native people used the entire animal (fur, meat, bones) to cover their needs without endangering their populations. Two hundred years ago competition with livestock, indiscriminate hunt, persecution and habitat modification started guanaco declination, nowadays reducing their abundance to 500.000 individuals, 90% of them inhabiting Patagonia. Guanaco, like their small camelid relative vicuña (Vicugna vicugna), has one of the most valuable wool of the world so live-shearing guanacos, resembling Inca’s prehispanic vicuña management, was promoted by Patagonian wildlife agencies as an economic alternative to livestock production. For three years I worked ad-honorem in the design and execution of the first events of live-shearing of wild guanacos in Neuquén, contributing to the development of corral traps, management techniques, animal welfare protocols and monitoring designs (1; 2).
In 2004 and 2007 I obtained two scholarships from the Argentinean government (National Agency for the promotion of Science and Technology, ANPCyT and CONICET) that allow me a full time commitment to evaluate live-shearing effects on the population dynamic of wild guanacos. I worked on a traditional sheep ranch in Rio Negro province that carried out 10 live-shearing wild guanaco events in 5 years. During this work I led 10 volunteers, teaching them distance sampling and telemetry techniques in the field, where we can observe the amazing experiment of the life from inside the test tube! Results of this work showed that live-shearing guanacos did not produce a negative population trend, it did not increase shorn guanaco mortality or reduce shorn guanaco reproduction during normal rainfall periods, suggesting that live-shearing could be a sustainable use and a potential guanaco conservation tool (3).Simultaneously to this work I studied the mortality of wild guanacos on wire fences in the same ranch, identifying this livestock management tool as a direct guanaco threat, quantifying their incidence on different age categories, and proposing an alternative friendly guanaco fence design to reduce mortality (4). With both biology conservation works I made my thesis and obtained the Doctoral degree in Buenos Aires University (UBA).
After becoming a Doctor in Biology, I obtained a postdoctoral scholarship from CONICET and funds to start a new project linked to guanaco conservation studying the incidence of red deer (Cervus elaphus) invasion on the guanaco declination in northwestern of Patagonia. In the beginning of XX century red deer was introduced in the northwest of Patagonia reaching 100.000 individuals nowadays. I am studying competitive interaction among these ungulate species and the effect of the abundance of puma’s (Puma concolor) exotic alternative prey (red deer) on their guanaco population regulation. Results of this study could be important not only for guanaco conservation but also to contribute to manage exotic red deer and native puma. In this sense I am now starting conversations with the purpose of collaborating with the red deer management plan of Lanín National Park, the nearest (and in a case adjacent) National Park to the ranches where I am working.
For two years now, I have been in the board of Conservación Patagónica a small ONG created as a tool to develop actions in favor of local environment conservation, and I am a member of the South American Camelids Specialist Group (GECS) one of the volunteers expert groups in the Species Survival Commission (SSC) of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
All these activities allowed to me to know and interact with different scientist and social actors in favor of conservation. Educational activities allowed me to interact not only with students but also with teachers and their subject-matter, 
incorporating conservation issues in the curricula. Academic activities allowed me to interact with other researchers, politicians, officials and governmental, ONG’s and private wild managers. This interaction has enabled to participate in several workshops (i.e. Technical issues, research priorities and applied actions to guanaco management in the south of Argentina and Chile), to be contacted to advise and teach about my expertise (i.e. Design, analysis, and abundances estimation of vicuña in Salta and Jujuy provinces), and collaborate with other projects (i.e. Patagonian and Andean steppe program of WCS). It is also important to mention that I have developed good relationships with the owners and workers of private lands where I carried out studies. This issue allowed to me to understand their productive concerns and share my conservation ones with them. I consider that this dialog very important, because people that administrate, work or inhabit the field are the most important wildlife managers.
My history in GIS is short. As an undergraduate I took an introduction course of ArcView 3.1 but for years I did not have the chance to use it. During my doctoral researches, the focus of my investigation was the demographic effects of wild guanaco management, so I use distance sampling and telemetry techniques, specific software and plain software related to GPS use for mapping, as OziExplorer 3.95.2 (i.e. figure 1)
Figure 1: Cabeza de Vaca ranch, wire fences in black, roads in red and transects design in blue.
After the doctoral thesis I started to analyze spatial and temporal patterns in my recorded data. I started working with direct observation of monitored guanacos by telemetry techniques. I studied radiocollared guanaco movements, management sites aversion, water sources distances and location areas in the managed section with ArcGIS 10.0 tools (i.e. figure 2).
Figure 2. Locations of radio-collared guanacos (Lama guanicoe) in the 50 km2 managed section and two contiguous northern sections, showing the northern (N) and north-eastern (NE) shearing zones (circles indicate the area with permanent structures), wire fences (black lines), the main stream (gray line) and artificial watering points (circled dots). a) Locations of 10 radio-collared males (squares, n = 120) between February 2006 and March 2009, and location areas calculated using the minimum convex polygon method resulting from the following number of locations (n) during the specified period (p) for each individual: m1: n=18, p=Feb 06-Jan 09; m2: n=21, p=Feb 06-May 08; m3: n=28, p=Feb 06-Mar 09; m4: n=25, p=Feb 06-Mar 09; m5: n=9, p=Feb 06-Mar 07; m9: n=12, p=Feb 06-Jun 07. The location area of m4 is divided in two sub-areas (stripped polygons, see text). b) Locations of 19 radio-collared females (circles, n = 137) between March 2007 and March 2009, and location areas obtained for each individual: f6: n=5; f7: n=9; f8: n=7; f9: n=4; f10: n=8; f11: n=11; f12: n=9; f13: n=8; f14: n=5; f15: n=9; f16: n=6; f17: n=8; f18: n=9; f19: n=9. Black symbols indicate guanaco groups >16 individuals.
describe your connection to the local SCGIS chapter: I shared my degree studies with Dr. Alejandro Gatto. He knows me and my work and he has helped me with GIS analyses many times. He invited me to apply for this program scholarship in 2012 but I felt I was more ready this year.
describe what is the most unique and the most challenging about the conservation/GIS work that you do: Guanaco still is the most important native herbivore and the only ungulate that inhabits Patagonian steppe at the end of the Pleistocene (10,000 – 13,000 years ago).From that onwards period guanaco coevolved with Patagonian steppes, which estimately supported 30-50 millions of guanacos. Since the European colonization, and particularly since domestic livestock introduction in the 1880s, guanaco population declined severely due to interspecific competition, overhunting and habitat degradation. Nowadays guanacos only reach up to 500.000 individuals, occupying 40% of its original range, and more than 30% of Patagonian steppe is under severe desertification. Under this situation, all efforts to conserve guanacos will also be to conserve Patagonian landscapes, fauna and flora. My past and present guanaco conservation projects are not the only one. However my projects have the particularity to be carried out in private rangelands, where most of remnant guanaco inhabit and their conservation usually produces conflicts of interest with livestock production. This situation confronts me with many obstacles. However my challenges are, working for these more endangered guanaco populations, generating knowledge about its particular situation, designing and proposing guanaco and landscape conservation tools that coexist with productive efforts, and have a direct interaction with owners and field workers who are the most important wildlife managers. Implementing GIS tools to analyze data collected during my doctoral work will allow me to investigate spatial effects of live-shearing events and how differently guanaco social groups use the habitat over time and in relation to human structures as wire fences and artificial water sources. The use of GIS tools on my current project with guanacos, red deer and puma will allow me to analyze spatial and temporal use and habitat selection of wild ungulates, identifying areas of exclusive or overlapped use and competitive displacements over time. GIS analysis of both projects will generate the first information about guanaco habitat use in livestock ranches and interactions among guanaco and an introduced wild invasive ungulate.
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