This May 22nd we celebrate the Biodiversity Day! As most of the environmental celebration days, these special days are to celebrate and raise awareness to a specific topic. Biodiversity or diversity of life is one of the most important topics currently due to the massive loss of species the world is looking at the moment.
In today’s post we are going to talk about how this year Project Zocay is celebrating this day. We are doing different activities not only during May but also in June to celebrate this special day.
Past May 20th we started our celebrations participating in an International Campaign to vaccinate domestic dogs in areas where wild cats (ocelots, jaguars, and cougars live) lives in close proximity with domestic dogs and humans in fragmented landscapes as the one in which Zocay Project works.
We also started a series of talks in Villavicencio, San Martín and Vista Hermosa where we are going to talk about primates, their importance and some of the threats they are facing to survive in fragmented areas.
Additionally, we continue with our monitoring of primate populations in San Martin are as well as Villanueva, Casanare in May, and June, respectively to continue learning how these fantastic creatures survive despite of all the human activities around them. We observed several giant ant eaters roaming in pastures near to natural lagoons, night monkeys resting in some hollow tree nests, squirrel monkeys in small forest and Mauritia swamps and some scarlet ibis resting in a solitary tree in the middle of the pasture.
In the following weeks, we also continue monitoring the squirrel monkeys living in small fragments inside Villavicencio city, facing challenges to survive in a cement jungle.
But how anyone can celebrate biodiversity every day, by taking care of our pets and not letting dogs and cats roam freely, so they cannot hunt birds, small mammals, and reptiles. Taking care of the use we give to the water we consume, planting flowers to feed bees and hummingbirds, reforesting bare areas as much as we can in places near to water sources, implementing sustainable practices in agriculture and cattle ranching if that is our main productive activity, reducing and recycling, and raising awareness through photography, painting and other artistic forms that can increase people knowledge of our biodiversity and its importance.
If you want to support our activities, please visit https://fineartamerica.com/art/xyomara+carretero or get in contact with as at xcarretero@gmail.com if you want to collaborate, donate or volunteer in our activities
© Copyright Disclaimer. All pictures used on this web page are protected with copyrights to Xyomara Carretero-Pinzón. If you want to use any of these pictures, please leave a message on the website. Thank you.

In recent weeks some people, locals from the study area, and colleagues had been asking what we do at Zocay Project. So, today’s post is about our activities and projects.
From the beginning the purpose of Zocay Project (Proyecto Zocay in Spanish) has been to monitor primate populations in forest fragments of different sizes, around San Martin town in Colombian Llanos. At the same time and during several years, with help from students and volunteers we also collected behavioral and ecological data focusing on mainly on movements, diet and individual relationships of four of the five species of primates found in the study area (see some of our findings and lessons learned in some or our past posts). Additionally, and in different years, we have support landowners initiatives of reforestation in fences and swamp areas with native species used by monkeys in the area. We have also make environmental education activities mainly with kids in farms and in San Martin town.
More recently, we initiated a camera trap project (in August of past year) to monitor wildlife use of natural and artificial water sources (see post from March 3rd, 2023 here). This project has helped us to also monitor the presence of feral dogs in the area and make possible our collaboration with Onca Foundation (a Colombian NGO) not only for this camera trap project but also a campaign of farm’s dog vaccinations that will be done in May 20th, as part of an international campaign with Onca Foundation and their partners as a prevention measure to reduce disease transmissions between domestic dogs and wild felids and canids.
In recent years we also expanded our activities and collaborations with local organizations in Cumaral town (Cumaral Biodiversa, Terra Viva Foundation and El Silencio farm) to study nocturnal monkey’s populations and nesting sites in this area. And Villavicencio city (William Barrios Fundation and SUSA research group from Universidad de los Llanos, a regional university) to study nocturnal and dusky titi monkeys in forest fragments in the urban and rural area of this city. In Villavicencio we also started a monitoring of squirrel monkeys groups living in remnant forest fragments inside the city, with help of citizen science and direct group counts.
We also had expanded our sampling to Villanueva town, limits of dusty titi monkey (zocay) in search of clarifications of their distribution area. We started monkey’s groups monitoring around this town with help of local people.
Finally, we are collaborating with the local environmental authority to support and participate in some activities coordinated by them in terms of environmental education in San Martin, with participation of the municipality, and fauna accidents in Villavicencio city.
So, although most of our focus and activities are concentrated in San Martin we had tried to include additional areas in the region that have the same monkey’s species and expand our collaborations. If you want to collaborate and/or participate and support our activities please contact us at xcarretero@gmail.com
If you want to support our activities, please visit https://fineartamerica.com/art/xyomara+carretero or get in contact with as at xcarretero@gmail.com if you want to collaborate, donate or volunteer in our activities
© Copyright Disclaimer. All pictures used on this web page are protected with copyrights to Xyomara Carretero-Pinzón. If you want to use any of these pictures, please leave a message on the website. Thank you.