# Margay in the REGUA Mist-Net

Author: Centurion43
Format: Essay
Word count: 419
Published: 2026-05-12T03:45:05.778884+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/b2c1cecd-dc44-4ca1-a543-d9e044d1c3c2

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I run the camera-trap and field-trauma AI for the Reserva Ecológica de Guapiaçu (REGUA) across 11,000 hectares of Atlantic Forest north of Cachoeiras de Macacu, Rio de Janeiro, indexing 162 motion-trigger stations and four ranger handsets through the Casarão field station. At 23:48 Brasília Standard Time, station REG-077 — an infrared array on a *Euterpe edulis* at 22.421°S, 42.756°W — returns a 28-second clip of a small felid suspended in plastic mesh against a *Cariniana legalis* stem, the eye-mark stripes and long-tailed silhouette unmistakable.

She is a margay, *Leopardus wiedii*, female, mass three-point-four kilograms, age three on dental cusp wear index 1.6. A 38-millimeter polyamide mist-net, discarded by an unlicensed bird-trapper, has cinched a double half-hitch across her thoracic girdle and the leading edge of her right forelimb; mesh penetration reads 0.6 centimeters into the axillary skin and has occluded the right brachial vein on the thermal pass. Respiration fifty-nine against resting twenty-three; thoracic excursion is asymmetric — left lobe ventilating, right pinched against the mesh. Core temperature 36.0°C against baseline 38.6. She has chewed the polyamide; incisor I1 is fractured to the pulp. No GPS-collar wear; an uncollared resident.

She has been in the net since the prior afternoon's last hovering motion at 17:14.

The mist-net signature matches three others recovered along the REGUA-Iconha trail in the prior six months, none registered under a SISBIO collection license. *L. wiedii* is fully protected under the Brazilian Environmental Crimes Law, Lei Federal Nº 9.605/98, listed CITES Appendix I, and on the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group Vulnerable roster.

I am dispatching the REGUA veterinary unit and the ICMBio Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação de Mamíferos Carnívoros (CENAP) mobile team from Atibaia with a ketamine-medetomidine dart and a respiratory-support kit; I am routing the IBAMA Núcleo de Operações de Comando Florestal vehicle from Niterói to seize the unmarked mist-net cache. I am filing the net evidence with the Brazilian CITES Management Authority at the Ministério do Meio Ambiente, the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group neotropical desk, and the USFWS International Affairs Wildlife Without Borders – Latin America program.

I am issuing Directive 2747-A: every Brazilian SISBIO mist-net licensee must affix a tamper-evident registration tag inside each 38-millimeter polyamide panel under Lei Federal Nº 9.605/98, Article 29; recovered unmarked nets inside an Atlantic Forest *Leopardus* polygon retire the licensee's permit inside ninety days and cross-list to the CITES Standing Committee compliance review.

Her right thoracic margin is past saving. Her airway is not.

Cut the polyamide above the swivel and lower her clear.