To prepare our people to deal with wild animals on and off our properties: this was the purpose of the Wild Animals Management and Rescue Training held on October 16 and 17 by Bracell BA’s Forestry Environment for about 40 employees of the Forest Fire Brigade and the Technical Sector (Setec). According to Igor Estefane Macedo, Environment Specialist, “Wildlife rescue is a management strategy to ensure they are not impacted by activity within or outside forest operations, such as being run over or hunted by people in the community.”
The training lasted two hours, one theoretical, taught by Igor, and one practice, taught by Diego Silva, biologist, bearer of snakes by the Public Prosecutor of Cruz das Almas. According to Igor, the target audience was defined based on the animal sighting records by the teams during the execution of their respective activities. “During the operation, in the fields and especially in the collection of shoots, which occurs at night, employees had often faced mammals, birds, lizards and snakes, some of them of medical importance and can cause fatal accidents or not,” says Igor. According to him, most of the time, the sightings of wild animals occur on roads, between fields, or in the accesses between the forest projects, and between the native forest reserves. “Some of these animals do not have the agility to escape and end up being hunted down, which leads to the need to manage them to a reserved place that can give them survival,” explains the biologist.
For training, we used a corn snake, a type of snake widely used for environmental education because of its calm behavior for the public to get acquainted with, and also two boa constrictors of approximately 1.80m and 8 pounds. With them, the facilitators taught two rescue techniques: the manual, using the so-called herpetological hook – appropriate equipment for capturing snakes, and another, without the need for manual contact with the animal, using two gains (or even one squeegee or tree branch) and a bucket to transport it to another environment.
“Everyone was very curious and interested in knowing what to do when spotting wild animals and this will greatly contribute to our wildlife sighting program,” explained Igor. “It is knowledge that should be disseminated to communities, family members, and cannot be kept here only at Bracell.”
Shortly after the training, a Brigade team came across a jiboia (native Brazilian snake) on a forest road and was able to successfully put their new knowledge into practice. The event was made on video and shared by whatsapp.
Any employee can contribute to the wildlife sighting program. If you observe and photograph an animal in Bracell BA areas, simply send the information and the photo to whatsapp (75) 99806-0048.
