Wildlife of
Mato Grosso

Primary Threats

• Large-scale conversion of Cerrado and Amazon-transition forests to soy and other row crops, plus pasture expansion/renewal for cattle. This drives habitat fragmentation, removes riparian buffers in headwater regions feeding the Pantanal, and increases fire ignition sources along farm frontiers (e.g., BR-163 corridor and eastern Cerrado municipalities).
• Deforestation and clearing land break up habitats needed by jaguar, tapir, and giant armadillo, and shrink gallery forests and seasonally flooded grasslands. In the north roads and settlements break up the Amazon; in the central east, Cerrado is cleared faster with weaker protection.
• Illegal and unsustainable timber extraction in the Amazon portion (including selective logging that degrades forests before conversion). Logging roads increase access for further clearing, hunting, and land grabbing, particularly in remote basins (e.g., Juruena-Teles Pires region).
• Highway and logistics development (notably BR-163 and associated feeder roads) accelerates land speculation, forest clearing, and wildlife roadkill. Hydropower cascades on rivers such as the Teles Pires and Juruena alter flow regimes and fish migrations, affecting aquatic food webs and local fisheries.
• Alluvial and small-scale gold mining in river systems introduces sediment and often mercury contamination, degrading aquatic habitats and posing risks to fish, river dolphins, giant otters, and human communities. Mining also opens new access routes that amplify deforestation and hunting pressure.
• Agricultural pesticides/fertilizers from intensive soy/cotton landscapes enter streams and wetlands, impacting amphibians, fish, and invertebrates and contributing to eutrophication in slow-moving waters. Mercury and fine sediment from mining contaminate fish and riparian food chains.
• Alteration of the Pantanal's flood pulse via upstream land-use change (erosion/siltation), river engineering, and hydropower, plus widespread changes to fire regimes (too frequent/intense fires). Drainage and channel modifications in headwaters can reduce wet-season storage and dry-season baseflows critical to wetland function.
• More frequent droughts and hotter conditions intensify wildfire risk and stress wetlands. In the Pantanal, extreme drought years reduce inundation extent and duration, disrupting breeding cycles (fish, birds) and increasing mortality during fires; in the Amazon-Cerrado transition, a hotter/drier climate can favor forest degradation and savannization in fragmented areas.
• Jaguar predation on cattle in the Pantanal and surrounding ranchlands can lead to retaliatory killing; conflict also affects pumas and other carnivores. Expanding road networks increase collisions with tapirs, giant anteaters, and reptiles, creating additional conflict/negative perceptions.
• Subsistence and opportunistic hunting increase along new roads and river access routes, reducing populations of large-bodied species (peccaries, tapirs, large birds) and destabilizing ecological interactions (seed dispersal, predator-prey dynamics) in both forest and wetland mosaics.
• Illegal capture and trade of birds (especially parrots/macaws and songbirds) occurs around urban centers and frontier towns; removal of nestlings and adults reduces local reproductive success, including in Pantanal and Cerrado gallery-forest habitats.
• In the Pantanal, intense fishing pressure (commercial and recreational) can reduce key stocks and alter trophic dynamics; combined with altered hydrology and water quality degradation, this threatens fisheries that support local livelihoods and wildlife dependent on fish biomass.
• Feral pigs/wild boar and exotic pasture grasses spread in disturbed Cerrado and agricultural mosaics, damaging native vegetation, increasing soil disturbance, and changing fire behavior. Non-native fish in modified waterways can compete with or prey upon native species, especially where dams favor generalists.
• Pathogen spillover from domestic animals (dogs, livestock) can affect wild carnivores and ungulates, particularly in ranching interfaces of the Pantanal and peri-urban areas; disease risk rises where habitat fragmentation forces closer contact among wildlife, people, and domestic animals.
• Unregulated tourism/boating, expanding settlement footprints, and increasing noise/light near waterways can disturb nesting birds and riverine mammals. In the Pantanal, concentrated wildlife-viewing and boat traffic can disrupt giant otter groups and sensitive breeding sites when not well managed.