- Bigal River Biological Reserve is located in the southern buffer zone of Ecuador’s Sumaco Napo-Galeras National Park, a less-explored national park that the biological reserve helps to protect, according to Thierry Garcia of the Sumac Muyu Foundation, which founded and manages the reserve.
- As part of its Bigal River Conservation Project, the Sumac Muyu Foundation has maintained camera traps in the reserve since 2014 and has collected hundreds of hours of footage showing big mammals like jaguars and tapirs as well as rare birds and other species going about their business in the foothill forests.
- The main goals of the camera trap program run by the Sumac Muyu Foundation include documenting the mammals present in the reserve and which parts of the reserve they tend to roam, as well as monitoring those mammal populations and studying variations in their behavior due to natural forest dynamics or human pressures.
Bigal River Biological Reserve was created in 2008 in the foothill forests of northeastern Ecuador, on the Amazonian side of the Andean slopes. The private protected area is located in the southern buffer zone of Sumaco Napo-Galeras National Park, a less-explored national park that the biological reserve helps to protect, according to Thierry Garcia of the Sumac Muyu Foundation, which founded and manages Bigal River Biological Reserve.
The reserve lies at elevations from 500 to 1,000 meters, between the lowland Amazonian forests and the cloud forests higher up in the Andes. Garcia says that it harbors “very interesting patterns from both ecosystems, at flora and fauna levels.”
As part of its Bigal River Conservation Project, the Sumac Muyu Foundation has maintained camera traps in the reserve since 2014 and has collected hundreds of hours of footage showing big mammals like jaguars and tapirs as well as rare birds and other species going about their business in the foothill forests.
The incredible biodiversity of the region is facing severe threats from human activities, however. The area that lies between Sumaco Napo-Galeras National Park and two other important protected areas in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Yasuní National Park and Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, have been subject to increasing deforestation in recent years due to the encroachment of oil palm and agricultural operations. “During the past 17 years, there has been considerable deforestation in this area, with numerous intensifying or new hotspots,” the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) reports.
“The Bigal River Conservation Project aims at preserving for the long term a biological corridor connecting the skirts of Sumaco volcano and the lowlands,” Garcia told Mongabay. “Preserving this corridor will be the only way to keep biodiversity intact in this area in the long run.”
The main goals of the camera trap program run by the Sumac Muyu Foundation include documenting the mammals present in the reserve and which parts of the reserve they tend to roam, as well as monitoring those mammal populations and studying variations in their behavior due to natural forest dynamics or human pressures.
“Big mammals regularly appearing on the cameras include jaguars, pumas, lowland tapirs, spectacled bears, peccaries (white lipped and collared), giant anteaters, bush dogs, giant armadillo, tamandua, ocelot, margay, jaguarundi, deers, racoons, coaties, pacas, and agoutis,” Garcia said. “All those mammals are endangered in Ecuador mainly because of habitat loss and hunting.”
The following videos were shot by the 10 camera traps that are constantly monitoring the Bigal River Biological Reserve. “We are still collecting data but haven’t noticed yet big changes or disappearance of some species,” Garcia said. He added that having this data on the local wildlife helps the Sumac Muyu Foundation fight development projects that could jeopardize the region’s biodiversity. “It is always very motivating to find out through the cameras that those animal are still very present and living freely in their natural habitat.”
Jaguars:
Puma:
White-lipped peccaries:
Collared peccary:
Lowland Tapir (also known as the South American tapir, Brazilian tapir, and maned tapir)
Giant anteater:
Short-eared dog (also known as the short-eared zorro and small-eared dog):
White-throated toucan:
Gray-winged Trumpeter:
Nocturnal Curassow:
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