Support For Capybaras

Hello Reader! Do you have a dog? Do you have a cat? Do you have any pets? If so, you’d probably know how much of a bundle of love they are. Just like your furry friends, capybaras are intelligent, loving, and extremely social. Capybaras are large beaver-like rodents native to South America.

Due to the large amounts of meat and fur found in capybaras, they could possibly be endangered. In Venezuela and Peru, populations have shrunken due to government-sanctioned hunting which leaves the only healthy populations of capybaras held in captivity in order to bring profit to the ranch owners. The only incentive ranch owners have to protect capybaras is for the profit margin. As of now, Venezuela allows ranchers to legally kill capybaras on their own ranch. However, illegal poaching of capybaras still happens. In the Hato El Cedral ranch of Venezuela, cows and capybaras are stolen and killed on the spot.

The reason the killing of capybaras is popular may be attributed back to the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic church declared the capybara a type of fish (despite its beefy taste) and thus allowed Catholics to eat the capybara during lent and other easter feasts.

The capybara, however, is helpful enough to consider saving them from illegal poaching. Capybaras live on a water plant diet, which means that they’ll eat the plants on the sides of streams that may be blocking the flow of water. This provides a sort of natural declogging system for the ecosystem which might help bring water to other animals living in the same habitat as the capybara.

This is why it is important to help these animals just like we help other animals and not ignore their existence. One way to help is to support the ROUS foundation for Capybara veterinary care. The ROUS (Rodents of Unusual Size) foundation aims to improve the quality and duration of life of captive capybaras. Using people’s donations, the ROUS foundation funds autopsies, health care, and research from the Texas A&M University of veterinary medicine to discover reasons for captive capybara illnesses and death.

The Foundation was founded by Melanie Typaldos after her pet Capybara, Caplin Rous, passed away from liver failure. Melanie believes that capybaras make great pets and should not be killed. Due to this reason, the foundation provides guides and other helpful resources on its website explaining to owners how best to take care of their capybaras. This is very helpful to not only owners but to researchers as well. There are more children’s books about capybaras than there are scientific journals, books, and articles about the animal. Due to this reason, there could possibly be a very important discovery that is hidden inside capybaras that we may not find out due to humanity just using capybaras for meat and fur.

So, if after reading this your interest has been piqued then please be sure to visit the Rous Foundation website at  https://rousfoundation.com/