A mother anteater carrying a baby on her back – credit, DJ Cooker, iNaturalist via CC 4.0. BY
It’s been almost 20 years since Argentina launched what was at the time the world’s first attempt at reintroducing the giant anteater to a landscape it had disappeared from.
19 years later, and the initiative has been nothing if not successful, with the local population growing from 0 to around 200 individuals.
La Fundación Rewilding Argentina initiated the project in 2007 in the Iberá Wetlands, in the province of Corrientes.
The species, locally known as yurumí, had disappeared from Corrientes in the mid-20th century due to poaching, fires, and habitat degradation.
Over the course of the operational stage of the project, 110 giant anteaters were rescued or rehabilitated for release into the wilds of Corrientes. These individuals might have been orphaned, or rescued after having wandered too close to civilization.
Of those 110 individuals, many procreated, leading to steady population growth and multiple generations of wild-born, wild-raised animals well suited to the wetlands. There are now 200 anteaters living wild there.
The Fundación said that the methodology applied for the program now serves as a basis for returning key predators and herbivores in different ecosystems, including Iberá.
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