UMass Amherst Ecologists Find Wild Bush Dog, a Native of South American Forests, in Remote Central Costa Rica
Trail cam documents unexpected, most northerly sighting of pack-hunting canids
May 23, 2019
Contact: Todd Fuller 413/545-4723
AMHERST, Mass. – Wildlife ecologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who are studying different conservation practices in the forests of Costa Rica recently made a startling discovery on a wildlife camera trap – wild bush dogs documented farther north than ever before and at the highest elevation.
Doctoral student Carolina Saenz-Bolaños is in Costa Rica comparing land use, management techniques, their effects on species presence and abundance, and human attitudes in four different areas in the rugged Talamanca Mountains: a national park, an adjacent forest reserve, an indigenous territory and nearby unprotected areas.
She and her advisor, professor of environmental conservation Todd Fuller at UMass Amherst, with others, report in an article today in Tropical Conservation Science the new, repeated sightings of bush dogs (Speothos venaticus) on trailcams well outside the limit of their...
