Estimating the impact of the illegal trade of primates in Mexico: a potential threat to wildlife.

The primates of Mexico, Ateles geoffroyi, Alouatta palliata, and Alouatta pigra, are seriously threatened by habitat loss, fragmentation, and illegal hunting and trade. Very little is known about the extent of illegal trade and its impacts on declining primate populations. Our study proposes a potential method based on estimating the number of individuals that die in the trade before being detected and those that probably cannot be detected. This facilitates estimating the number of animals extracted and allows an assessment of how trafficking impacts their populations. We derive estimates from seizure data of primates in Mexico between 2010 and 2019. To do this, we created wildlife detection rates and mortality rates from the existing literature (scientific articles, journalistic articles, and notes) to estimate the number of primates that die during capture, transport, and sale and the number of trafficked primates that were not detected by Mexican authorities. We estimate that 946 primates were removed from the wild for the pet trade each year (spider monkey Ateles geoffroyi = 854; black howler monkeys Alouatta pigra = 38, mantled howler monkey Alouatta palliata = 54). The annual reduction in population size caused by trafficking was greatest for Ateles geoffroyi (2.2%), followed by Alouatta pigra (1.3%), and Alouatta palliata (0.4%). Our estimates show the percentage of impacts that trafficking has on Mexican primate populations. Nevertheless, trade has the potential to impact declining populations and still must be addressed.

Characteristics of Central American brocket deer resting sites in a tropical mountain cloud forest in eastern Mexico.

The Central American brocket deer is a vulnerable species. Geographically isolated populations have been affected by poaching and habitat fragmentation, leading to local extinctions. It is therefore important to understand this species' habitat characteristics, particularly of resting sites, which play a crucial role in survival and fitness. We describe the characteristics and distribution patterns of Central American brocket deer resting sites at the microhabitat and landscape scales in San Bartolo Tutotepec, Hidalgo, México. We conducted eight bimonthly field surveys between November 2017 and March 2019, consisting of 32 transects of 500 m length to search for fecal pellets, footprints, scrapes, and browsed plants. At each resting site we identified, we measured canopy closure, horizontal thermal cover, protection from predators for fawns and adults, escape routes, slope from the ground, presence of scrapes, cumulative importance value of the edible plant species, and distance from the resting site to the nearest water resource to characterize the site at the microhabitat scale. At the landscape scale, we identified the type of biotope, elevation, aspect, and slope. We compared all of these parameters from resting sites with a paired randomly selected site to serve as a control. We performed a multiple logistic regression to identify the parameters associated with the resting sites and a point pattern analysis to describe their distribution. We characterized 43 resting sites and their corresponding control plots. At the microhabitat scale, resting sites were associated with higher vertical thermal cover, more concealment cover, more escape routes, more edible plant species, higher slope from the ground, and closer distance to water resources. At the landscape scale, resting sites were associated with beech forest, oak forest, secondary forest, and ravine biotopes and negatively associated with pine forest, houses, and roads. Resting sites had an aggregated spatial pattern from 0 to 900 m, but their distribution was completely random at larger scales. Our study revealed that Central American brocket deer selected places with specific characteristics to rest, at both microhabitat and landscape scales. We therefore suggest that existing habitat be increased by reforesting with native species-particularly Mexican beech forest and oak forest-to improve the deer's conservation status in the study area.