Cattle Parnaiba Headwaters National Park Piaui Brazil
Parnaiba Headwaters National Park in Brazil protects one of the largest areas of cerrado in the country. This environment is usually described as savannah but is actually made up of a variety of different habitats from open grassland and marsh to dry woodland and thick bush. The word cerrado actually means closed in Spanish because in some places the bush is fairly impenetrable. What is curious about the cerrado is that the different habitats within it are in appearance very reminiscent of similar habitats in Africa but for one obvious difference, where are the large mammals?
The grasslands of Africa famously support large herds of grazers; the dry woodlands support a similar variety of animals but in much smaller numbers. Therefore if one were travelling through an equivalent African landscape to that of Parnaiba one would expect to see at the very least small numbers of a variety of large herbivores and their predators. Yet in Parnaiba the only large herbivores you see at all are domestic cattle like those in this photo, this park was only created very recently from what was ranch land and the locals still graze their cattle in the park.
It seems obvious when you look at the cerrado that there should be a variety of large mammals here, the equivalent of Africa’s elephants, zebras, antelopes and other large herbivores, so why aren’t there? The answer is that there were once, until perhaps as recently as 10,000 years ago habitats like this in South America did support a variety of large herbivores. Though not in huge numbers the grasslands here are very poor quality compared to those in Africa and could never have supported huge herds of large grazers. But undoubtedly there would have been small herds of grazers such as wild horses and camelids related to guanacos/llamas. Within the woodlands elephant like mastodons, giant ground sloths and various other browsers, like Xenorhinotheriums which belong to an extinct and uniquely South American family of animals known as lipoterns. These curious animals had three toes rather than the two toes that ungulates have and a short trunk like nose perhaps similar to that of a saiga antelope.
Exactly what happened to these animals, why South America’s Pleistocen megafauna became extinct is still to be determined for certain. It is often suggested that they were wiped out by human hunters that when the first people arrived in South America they killed off all of the megafauna. However, no one is sure when the first people reached the continent or in fact even exactly where they came from. New evidence appears to contradict past theories and suggests that people and the megafauna may have overlapped for at least 3,000 years. The most likely explanation, would seem to be that severe climate change when the ice age came to an end, reduced the available habitat for these animals cutting their numbers and severely restricting their range. In the past they had been able to survive such changes, but that was before the arrival of human hunters. Climate change as it were put them on the ropes and then human hunters delivered the knockout blow.
The grazing of livestock in national parks, should generally be discouraged but arguably in this case. the cattle are doing little damage. The poor quality of the grazing ensures that they can only be kept in relatively small numbers and they are perhaps in part, fulfilling the ecological role played by some of the missing megafauna.
Cattle Parnaiba Headwaters National Park Piaui Brazil
Parnaiba Headwaters National Park in Brazil protects one of the largest areas of cerrado in the country. This environment is usually described as savannah but is actually made up of a variety of different habitats from open grassland and marsh to dry woodland and thick bush. The word cerrado actually means closed in Spanish because in some places the bush is fairly impenetrable. What is curious about the cerrado is that the different habitats within it are in appearance very reminiscent of similar habitats in Africa but for one obvious difference, where are the large mammals?
The grasslands of Africa famously support large herds of grazers; the dry woodlands support a similar variety of animals but in much smaller numbers. Therefore if one were travelling through an equivalent African landscape to that of Parnaiba one would expect to see at the very least small numbers of a variety of large herbivores and their predators. Yet in Parnaiba the only large herbivores you see at all are domestic cattle like those in this photo, this park was only created very recently from what was ranch land and the locals still graze their cattle in the park.
It seems obvious when you look at the cerrado that there should be a variety of large mammals here, the equivalent of Africa’s elephants, zebras, antelopes and other large herbivores, so why aren’t there? The answer is that there were once, until perhaps as recently as 10,000 years ago habitats like this in South America did support a variety of large herbivores. Though not in huge numbers the grasslands here are very poor quality compared to those in Africa and could never have supported huge herds of large grazers. But undoubtedly there would have been small herds of grazers such as wild horses and camelids related to guanacos/llamas. Within the woodlands elephant like mastodons, giant ground sloths and various other browsers, like Xenorhinotheriums which belong to an extinct and uniquely South American family of animals known as lipoterns. These curious animals had three toes rather than the two toes that ungulates have and a short trunk like nose perhaps similar to that of a saiga antelope.
Exactly what happened to these animals, why South America’s Pleistocen megafauna became extinct is still to be determined for certain. It is often suggested that they were wiped out by human hunters that when the first people arrived in South America they killed off all of the megafauna. However, no one is sure when the first people reached the continent or in fact even exactly where they came from. New evidence appears to contradict past theories and suggests that people and the megafauna may have overlapped for at least 3,000 years. The most likely explanation, would seem to be that severe climate change when the ice age came to an end, reduced the available habitat for these animals cutting their numbers and severely restricting their range. In the past they had been able to survive such changes, but that was before the arrival of human hunters. Climate change as it were put them on the ropes and then human hunters delivered the knockout blow.
The grazing of livestock in national parks, should generally be discouraged but arguably in this case. the cattle are doing little damage. The poor quality of the grazing ensures that they can only be kept in relatively small numbers and they are perhaps in part, fulfilling the ecological role played by some of the missing megafauna.