Illegal Hunting

The difficult access has, until recently, protected the "Pantanal" from the human impact. Only in the last decades has it begun to be exploited by hunters for "ariranha" and alligator skins. Nowadays, the illegal hunting and the smuggling of alligator skins are, in general, under control; alligator breeding farms are multiplying. The indiscriminate hunting of deer, capybaras and "baguás" (a variety of mongrel dogs), considered to be illness spreading animals, of piscivorous and granivorous birds, snakes and jaguars constitutes a direct danger to the regional biological diversity.

Commercial fishing in "Pantanal" has become a serious environmental problem, with the arrival of boats and refrigerated trucks. Even the game fishing, more and more intense, needs severe regulation. Individual quotas per amateur fisherman exist. However, the number of tourist fisherman has been increasing with the growing access facilities to the "Pantanal".

by Francis Dov Por, Vera Lúcia Imperatriz Fonseca and Frederico Lencioni Neto