Snapshot of aguara guasu: ethnography of participatory monitoring with camera traps in Paso Centurión, Uruguay

Abstract In 2013, an ambiguous camera trap photograph called into question the extinction of the maned wolf in Uruguayan territory. This record, taken within the framework of participatory monitoring with camera traps carried out in Paso Centurión, a protected area in the department of Cerro Largo, Uruguay, give rise to anthropological reflections on different forms of knowledge and relationships between humans and animals that meet, dialogue and tense up. This work is based on an ethnography on dialogues between local and biological knowledge, focusing in particular on a participatory monitoring with camera traps developed by a civil organization that combines biology and environmental activism in the locality. We focus on the relationships with one of the recorded animals, the maned wolf, to discuss its categorization as a rare, present or elusive species and its becoming an emblem of monitoring.

摘要 2013年，一张存在歧义的红外相机陷阱（camera trap）照片，对乌拉圭境内鬃狼（maned wolf）的灭绝状态提出了质疑。该记录是在乌拉圭塞罗拉尔戈省帕索森图里翁保护区开展的红外相机陷阱参与式监测（participatory monitoring）框架下获取的，引发了学界对多元知识形态，以及人类与相遇、对话并产生紧张关系的动物之间互动关系的人类学反思。本研究基于一项探讨本土知识与生物学知识间对话的民族志（ethnography）研究，重点聚焦于当地一家融合生物学研究与环保行动主义（environmental activism）的民间组织所开展的红外相机陷阱参与式监测项目。我们以记录到的动物之一——鬃狼为研究对象，探讨其被归类为稀有物种、现存物种或隐匿物种的相关议题，以及它如何成为此次监测项目的标志性符号。