Researchers study Belize’s smallest cats
Mention the wild cats of Belize and our thoughts invariably turn to the majestic jaguar. But that awe-inspiring animal is only one of five species of felines that roam the jungles of our country. Last weekend, News 5’s Patrick Jones ventured into the foothills of the Mountain Pine Ridge where he took a firsthand look at the unique life of Belize’s smallest cats.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
They are not much bigger than your average domestic pussycat and their colourful fur makes Belize’s margays a favourite for both hunters and people looking for pets. That’s why the tiger cat or tigrellito, the smallest of the nation’s five wildcat species, is in danger of disappearing from the Belizean landscape. But the efforts of a group of women from the organization called LiFeline are working to reverse that trend.
The eleven cats in this twenty-six acre facility are being re-introduced to life in the wild. Most of them were being kept as pets, a practice that is clearly against the law as margays are on the list of endangered animals in Belize. When the cats began to get aggressive, their owners quickly realized that it was time for them to go.
Pat Manzard, LiFeline
“The Margays were confiscated because people take them when they are little tiny little kittens, thinking that they are going to make good pets. And they don’t make good pets because they are wild animals and once they get to about the age of six or eight months they start to get aggressive and they will scratch, and bite and they’re also expensive to feed.”
For many of these cats, LiFeline is their only escape back to the wild. Here in the rehabilitation centre, they’re weaned from human contact in preparation for a new life in the jungle.
This is Happy, a two-year old margay who is about to live outside of captivity for the first time. His handlers at LiFeline are confident he’s ready for the challenge.
Tamsin Barnes, Veterinarian
“He’s never been in the wild fending for himself in the past. He’s been captive, as we know since he was a six-week-old kitten, so he’s never had to get stuff for himself. But at LiFeline, at the centre he’s had the best training that we can provide for him.”
And that training includes feeing him a diet of live prey, like rodents and birds. According to veterinarian Tamsin Barnes, Happy displays good hunting instincts and is ready for life on the prowl.
Tamsin Barnes
“He appears to me to be very healthy. Prior to his release we sedated him and gave him a full physical examination and we also took some blood that was tested for the basic protocols for any obvious infections, check his liver and kidneys, no signs of any problems there. And we’ve also ruled out the possibility of him carrying the two-cat killing viruses cat AIDS and feline leukaemia.”
While surviving on his own is not guaranteed, his first six months in the rainforest of western Belize will provide invaluable information for the people at LiFeline as they prepare the other cats for their new life.
Wildlife Biologist Kelly Cruce will chart Happy’s progress in the wild for the next six months via a small transmitter attached to the animal before his release. Cruce says the tracking device will help her determine how well Happy is adapting to his new surroundings.
Kelly Cruce, Wildlife Biologist
“This is all new to science. Everything that’s going to be learnt from this will be new to science. So right now we’re trying to establish a number of things. How well does an animal that has been kept in captivity or in different conditions, how well will they do once they are reintroduced to their natural habitat in the wild. We’d like to see how he survives, if he is able to instinctively go and hunt and live naturally.”
The LiFeline Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre has the support of the Government of Belize. Wildlife Officer, Marcelo Windsor of the Forest Department, has been working with Pat Manzard and her staff to get the facility up and running.
Marcello Windsor, Wildlife Officer
“This is part of the wildlife programme that we have in place. This was developed due to the need of having to rehabilitate and rescue a large number of cats that people do keep as pets. Unfortunately, when these animals are small they are cute, but as the grow that’s when trouble starts.”
Windsor says that the amount of Margays at the rehabilitation centre indicates that this might just be the tip of the iceberg. And with the birthing period just starting, LiFeline is bracing for even more cubs to be brought in. How this will affect the overall population of these tiger cats in Belize is not entirely certain.
Pat Manzard
“To tell you the truth, we don’t know. Nobody knows because very little research has been done on these small cats. We desperately need to find out how many there are, and that’s another thing that LiFeline is going to be doing in the near future. We think there are fairly healthy populations, but until we do the research, we can’t be sure. But we are talking about animals that are naturally rare anyway, so the fact that people are hunting them, killing the mothers to take the kittens as pets is not good for the health of the populations of small cats in this country.”
While it’s against the law to tamper with these cats, Manzard says there is an amnesty for people who want to voluntarily part with their feline friends.
Pat Manzard
“If anybody has one of these cats and they don’t know what to do with it or they know somebody who’s got a wild cat and they’re keeping it as a pet and its becoming difficult, please contact either the wildlife unit or to contact us at LiFeline directly and we can bring the cats in. If people hand over cats to us willingly, even though keeping them is against the law, they will not suffer any penalty, they won’t be prosecuted.”
Whether the cats will suffer in their new and unfamiliar environment is something the researchers at LiFeline will be closely watching. Patrick Jones, for News 5.
People who want to voluntarily hand in their margays can call the Forest Department’s wildlife unit at 822-1524 or LiFeline at 608-0247. The rehabilitation centre is a private research facility and is not open to the public. In case you were wondering, the four species in addition to the margay are the jaguarondi (also known as the halari), the ocelot (sometimes called tigrillo), the puma (also called red tiger) and the familiar jaguar.
