And speaking of Anri, we asked Pinelo for an update on the cat which was caught in mid March in Lemonal. As you'll recall, he was infested with screwworm and needed treatment. But will he be released back into the wild after he's cured? Here is what Pinelo said.
John Pinelo, Chief Forest Officer
"Anri is doing very well. The beef worm scars are now getting better. She eats a huge amount of beef steak everyday. We have her in an area where there is no human interaction other than the person who feeds the animal and when the vet comes to take a look at her. So she's doing well and we are assessing, after we're finished with the beef worm scars, it is properly cured, we will then make a determination along with the vet as to whether it can be released. Remember I told you it also had a broken canine that the vet was looking at to determine - it's not totally broken, it's just a piece broken off - whether it could still effectively hunt with that. What we were worried about was that because it was broken, it was open so it could get infections. Similar to if you have a cavity you can get an infection in there. That was the situation that we were hoping that it could be remedied. I need to get a latest update from the vet as to how that is coming along with the canine but Anri is doing very well."
John Pinelo, Chief Forest Officer
"We have a trained vet working with us so we depend heavily to give us the health assessment of the animal. In terms of the canine I am going to have a meeting next week with a jaguar specialist, a jaguar vet to see if he can come and do that assessment for us and then we will then make a determination to see if the animal can be released. The only limiting factor at this point which will determine whether we can let it go or not is whether the tooth can heal properly because like I said it isn't broken completely, it still has the function of the tooth, it's just not as pointed as the other one but it's still functional but that is where we need to make the determination and decide whether it can be release or not."
