Collared peccary in Venezuela

I’m not saying peccaries aren’t cute. They have a certain charm about them. But look at that nose! Now look at the photo of my nose.

My profile including my adorable nose

Do they look anything alike? No.

Here are some other ways we are different:

• Peccaries have hooves (they are in the group with even-toed hoofed animals), capybaras have webbed feet.
• Peccaries are omnivores, capybaras are herbivores
• Peccaries have tusks, capybaras have self-sharpening incisors
• Peccaries live from the American Southwest, through Central America and South America, capybaras are restricted to southern Panama and eastern South America.
• Peccaries top out at around 90 lbs, that would be a puny capybara
• Groups of peccaries sometimes attack and kill humans, capybaras are sweet, docile animals
• Peccaries have an unpleasant odor from a scent gland on their back, capybaras have a nose scent gland whose odor is not noticeable by humans
• Peccaries can run up to 20 mph, no one bothers to clock capybaras because we are so slow
• Peccaries live up to 24 years, capybaras, sadly, live only 12-14 years

Here are some ways we are similar:

• Our overall body shape is long and narrow
• We overlap through much of our South American ranges
• We both have very coarse hair
• We are about the same length and height even though capys weigh more
• We both have small ears (although capy ears are much cuter)
• Jaguars, crocodiles and caiman will eat capybars or peccaries

I hope that clears up any confusion you have had on this topic. Do not feel too badly, lots of people make this mistake. But look again at the nose on that peccary and my nose. Seriously, don’t confuse us again.

Morning Bath

A lot of people ask me what my day is like. “Caplin,” they say, “what the heck do you do all day?” Well, that’s a tough question. Obviously I do different things on different days. But I thought I could give an example by showing what my day was like last Saturday.

Saturday was a beautiful spring-like day. But I didn’t know that when I got up in the morning so, after my breakfast yogurt, I went into the bathroom for my morning soak in the tub. In the summer I substitute a swim in my pool for a tub soak. In the pool I am a demon! I can swim and dive and zip around faster than an otter. But in the bath I just like to roll on my side and bite at my toys or push them underwater.

Rolling in the Tub

I bite the edge of that Frisbee and I love to push that ball under my chin.

Morning bath lasts about an hour during which time I expect my owner to keep me company. She can do other stuff but she cannot leave the bathroom!

After bath (or swim), my owner goes out to feed the horses. I usually spend this time in the yard, eeping plaintively and generally acting like I’m going to die if she doesn’t come back immediately. (Here’s a link to a video of me eeping.) Sometimes I don’t think she cares if I live or die because she doesn’t seem to be in any particular hurry. In fact, when the weather is nice, she’ll go out and spend hours with those horses and ignore me completely.

Last Saturday she came back pretty quickly though. Since it was so nice outside, she got a book and sat down on the swinging bench to read and watch me graze.

In the backyard

I had to keep looking up to check on her. Sometimes she sneaks away when she thinks I’m not looking.

I have to say, the warm sun felt great on my fur. I thought I couldn’t be any happier. Then my owner got out my harness and said, “Let’s go for a walk!” I love walks. I love walks almost as much as I hate getting my harness on. So naturally I had to struggle some. Once the harness was on, I ran to the gate, eager to go somewhere. Sometimes we go for rides in the car.

Me riding in the car

I included that photo because I look so cute in it but the fact is that we did not go on a ride in the car last Saturday. Instead my owner said I could go wherever I want and she would just follow me. Naturally I headed down to the creek!

Me in Capybara Creek

I’ll go swimming in the creek even when it is too cold for me to swim in my pool. I love diving into the murky water and pretending that I am in the Amazon…without anacondas, caiman, jaguars, piranhas and all that. Sometimes I pretend those animals are there but I’m glad they’re not really.

On the bank of Capybara Creek

After a while I got out and started looking for some tasty plants to eat. Different plants grow out there in the pasture and around the creek than in my yard. It’s exciting looking at all the fresh greens and trying to figure out what would taste good and what wouldn’t.

I went hither

I went thither

I went hither and thither looking for the very most delicious morsels. All the while my owner sat and watched me and the warm sun shone on my back. My fur dries out very quickly because it is so coarse so I was dry and comfortable in no time.

After a while I’d had my fill and I decided to just sit down and take in the scenery.

Looking at the world

There was more world in this direction

After a while we headed back to the house. On the way I stopped to examine everything so it took us a long time to get back even though we were only a stone’s throw away.

The day had been going so great that you can imagine my shock when my owner up and left! I ran to the gate and eeped at her but nope, she just kept driving away, leaving a forlorn capybara in her wake.

She came back when it was getting dark and I was happy again, especially because she gave me a bowl of yogurt in the kitchen. (Here’s a video of me eating yogurt.)

After yogurt

Well, that was pretty much my whole day.  I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Me with Neptune

Against all odds, my famosity has extended beyond the run-of-the-mill 15 minute variety. I dare say I have achieved a full 30 minutes! This is great because as Capybara Ambassador it is my job to let people know about us capybaras, including how cute and how smart we are. I am being super successful at that, not that I like to brag. I had a whole bunch of articles written about me this month, too many to put links to all of them so these are just some highlights. The photo of me with Neptune was one of the most popular photos used. I can understand why because we sure look cute together.

The LA Times

Planeta Bizzaro (in Brazil)

The Telegraph (in the UK)

EToday (in Russian!)

PEOPLEPets and msnbc.com

HLN.BE (Belgium)

I did a video segment for KENS5 in San Antonio, Texas

Here’s an article on Hobby.cz about me in Czech!

Here is an article about me in Pets Best Newsroom. Question is, why did they use a photo of some other capybara? That is not me.

I even got a dumb reference from the comedian, Dave Barry. Not sure I like those comments.

And wow! Look, here’s an article about me in Thai!

There were more, including one in a newspaper in Hong Kong that I couldn’t get a link to. So you can see that I am Capybara Ambassador Extraordinaire!

I want to thank Linda Lombardi of the Associated Press. She started this whole thing rolling with her article about me. Thanks Linda!

Wild capybaras with caiman (photo by Coral Waters)

I think humans are romantics. They have dreamy visions of the world. Fantasies based only loosely on reality. I think this because so many people comment that I would be better off in the wild. If I could actually speak human, I would tell them that they would be better off in the wild.

I’m not saying that all capybaras should be pets. In some ways I do envy my wild cousins. I’d like to be free to travel far and wide. To swim the languorous Amazon. To graze grassy meadows stretching as far as the eye can see. To lie with a band of my family and friends under the scant shade of bushes in the heat of the day. It sure sounds great.

But see that photo at the top of this post? That is a young caiman with a couple of adult capys. Caiman are like alligators. That one is too small to hurt those capys and they all know it. But it could catch a baby capybara and eat it. Or it’s larger friends could even threaten those adult capys.

And caiman aren’t the only dangers that lurk in the water.

The photo below shows an Orinoco crocodile. Those crocs make caiman look like midgets. They can easily eat a full grown capybara and come back for seconds.

Orinoco Crocodile

And have you heard of these guys? They are called piranhas. How many of you humans want to get in the water with them? Okay, so they are generally harmless…except when they’re not.

Pirahna

Does anyone recognize this deceptively lazy-looking snake? It’s an anaconda, the largest snake in the world. Want to know what it’s favorite food is? Capybara.

Anaconda

And that’s not all. There are jaguars and pumas that eat capybaras of all sizes. There are eagles and vultures that eat baby capybaras. There are parasites and diseases. But the photo below shows our greatest enemy.

Llaneros

Its humans. You hunt us for meat and for leather. You drain our habitat to grow crops or cattle. You build roads that divide our swamps with corridors of death.

My grandpa, Captain, lives in Arkansas. He is 18 years old. The average life expectancy of a wild capybara in a relatively protected ranch environment is less than two years. A rare individual lives to be five or six and that is only the females who are less likely to be “harvested” and who can live in bands with their sisters. Males are usually driven to solitary and especially dangerous lives.

I am sorry to tell you but the wild of your fantasies does not exist. When you find the “garden of Eden” that you imagine the wild is, let me know and we can all go live there.

Blancanieves exploring with her brother

Some of you may recall my post about a baby white capybara born on Christmas day. I said she was born in Bolivia but that was not true.  She was actually born at M’Bopicuá Breeding Station in Uruguay.  Her caretaker,  Juan Villalba-Macias, wrote me and explained my mistake. He also told me she is doing great and he sent some photos of her for me to share with my readers (after the break).

Juan holding Blancanieves

Blancanieves is an albino. That means she is unable to make the pigment that gives us capybaras our color. Some people wrote me and were concerned about her health. It is true that albinism can be very bad for animals and for people. In horses, there is a gene called “lethal white” and foals with that gene don’t develop correctly and always die right after they are born. Paint horses have a color called Medicine Hat where they are all white except their ears. Those horses are usually deaf. Cats have a similar problem and I think dogs do too. I don’t think we know yet if Blancanieves is deaf but rodents are not closely related to cats, dogs or horses so they is no reason to assume that she is.

Juan's wife, Dany, with a rapidly-growing Blancanieves

Albinism is always recessive. That is because an albino animal or person is missing a gene necessary to make the pigment. But there are two copies of every gene. If Blancanieves ever has babies with a normal colored capybara, all of her babies will be normal colored (I call it sorrel). They will have one broken copy of the gene from Blancanieves and one working copy from their father. That is what geneticists call heterozygous. The working copy will probably make enough pigment that the babies will be sorrel just like their father but it is possible they might be a little lighter colored.

Blancanieves with her brother

Because albinism is recessive, it is not possible to tell if her siblings, like her brother pictured above, have two normal colored genes or one normal gene and one albino gene. They could be heterozygous just like Blancanieves babies would be.

Albino animals and people do have trouble with their skin and eyes which are very sensitive to the sun. That is one reason they don’t do well in the wild. Another is that they are too easy for a predator to spot and fixate on. Little Blancanieves would find it hard to hide from a jaguar, especially at night.

Morning capybara!

Morning comes early at my house. Weekends or weekdays, a certain capybara named Caplin Rous wants his morning yogurt. He has various ways of making this known. The most subtle wake up is one where he sits on the floor or lies on the bed and eeps periodically. Eeping is that I call the soft, high-pitched noise he makes when he wants something. Guinea pigs call this a wheek. It sounds something like a one-note bird call. To wake me he’ll eep quietly, wait thirty seconds or so and eep again just loudly enough to keep me awake. As far as I know, he can keep it up forever.

Another wake-up tactic is to tap me on the face. This is not subtle at all. He comes out from under the covers, climbs onto my pillow with his face directly above mine and not-so-gently taps me on the nose or the cheek or even on the eye or mouth with his large, heavy paw. Sometimes I try to hide under the pillow but this is no good since his 100 lb weight it holding it down.

Might as well get up.

Waiting for yogurt.

He follows me at his own slow pace into the kitchen, usually cutting through the carpeted living room rather than the tiled family room—he does not like slick floors–and watches attentively while I dole out his breakfast. I have several bathmats on the floor for his convenience. But he’s not in charge of everything. In order to get his yogurt he always has to do a trick. Usually it’s just turning around in circles a few times followed by a brief “stand tall” where he stands on his hind legs and reaches his mouth for the bowl. Lately I’ve been making him walk. I position him at one end of the bathmat runway, tell him to stand and then slowly move the bowl in front of him so that he takes a few steps.

Once breakfast is over, it’s off for his morning soak. Luckily we have a big bathtub that actually comfortably fits a large capybara (or maybe that is unluckily). He climbs onto the tile shelf around bath and saunters over to the sink where I am trying to brush my teeth. Capybaras don’t need to brush since their teeth grow throughout their lives and are made to break off to a perpetual knife-edge. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t like toothpaste. He gets no more than three small dabs that I put on the edge of the sink. I think he likes the minty frothiness of it.

I need some water here!

Climbing into the bath, he tests the water for the desired warmth. Finding it suitable, he rolls on his side, bites his toes, pushes his ball under his chin, takes a long drink, soaks and soaks some more. During this time, I prepare for my day also. It is enough for him to know I am there with him, I don’t actually have to do anything.

Eventually I am ready for whatever the day has in store. But Caplin may not be. If it is a weekend I will sometimes sit next to the tub and read until he is ready to get out. If it’s a work day, I leave the bathroom. I return in 30 seconds to find him perched with his front feet on the ledge in the tub and his back feet in the water. This is his pooping position. I stand and watch him, scoop the poop up as it appears and put it into the toilet. Luckily no humans ever use that tub.

Eating hay with Kapibara-san

Next we move to the computer room where I check his morning email, catch up on his FaceBook page, tweet for him and see if there are any comments on his blog or YouTube channel that need responses. Caplin usually jumps on the window seat and chows down on some hay. But he may be impatient and head for the front porch with the claim that it is popsicle time. Eventually I get a popsicle and sit on the steps to feed him. He taps me when he finishes each bite to ask for another. It’s cute behavior but that is how he picked up the idea of taping me on the face in the morning.

Horse feeding time is very traumatic for Caplin. He follows me outside and races me to the gate that surrounds our house and delimits his home range. I pat him on the nose and tell him he can’t come, that I’ll be back soon. He can hear me while I feed the horses and I can hear him. He eeps at the top of his lungs. Luckily, even his loudest noises aren’t very loud, but he really knows how to make me feel guilty.

Settling in on the couch

Back in the house he settles onto his favorite couch, especially if the morning sun comes through the window to warm his fur. The rest of the morning is pretty much just sleep, sleep, sleep. I sneak out to work once he is comfortable if it is a weekday or settle in for a bit of reading or writing in the same room with him if it’s a quiet weekend.

On weekdays I don’t see him again until evening but I do sometimes hear him. My husband, Rick, is not working these days and will sometimes give me a call, “Do you want to talk to the capybara?” This can be awkward if I’m in a meeting but otherwise I take the call. Over the phone I can hear his plaintive little eeps. I think he is saying, “When are you coming home to me?”

Sitting on his "pool table."

On weekends if the weather is nice we do things outside. When it’s warm he’ll spend an hour or more swimming in his pool (and expecting me to watch him the whole time). In the summer I get in the pool with him. He’ll get on his pool table, which is a plastic table we put in the pool to give him a place to rest in the water, and lie still or roll around or beg for treats.

Caplin with Leopolda in a rare moment of truce

Nearly every day he spends several hours grazing in the yard, which is about ½ acre and completely surrounds our house. He’ll follow the sun to either graze or nap. He has a favorite corner back behind the pond under the shade of the plum trees. His repose there is sometimes disrupted by our tortoise, Leopolda. Leah has a tendency, as all tortoises do, to walk the fence. She doesn’t care much that Caplin is in her way. She’s perfectly willing to climb right over him. This drives Caplin crazy. When he sees Leah coming he jumps up and threatens her. His threats consist of lunges, huffing, clicking, and biting at her shell. Leah could not care less. She’ll pause when he actually bites her but moves on almost immediately. Once the tortoise threat has been handled, Caplin lies back down to enjoy his victory and claim his turf.

Swimming in Capybara Creek

Some days we go on outings. Caplin loves going places. When I put his harness on he runs to the gate. A favorite outings is just a walk down to the creek that goes across our property. Swimming in the creek is infinitely more fun than swimming in the pool. I leave his harness on but take off the leash. I can’t trust him in the creek. He believes that the Amazon is downstream and he is determined to get there. Long before he reaches the Amazon, he’d have to go across people’s property and dangerous roads. So the harness stays on.

Other favorite destinations are local pet stores and restaurants with outdoor, pet friendly seating. Caplin eagerly hops into the backseat for the drive. I fold down half the seat so he can get into the hatch but he doesn’t usually do that. Mostly he sits on top of the folded seat and looks out the window. When the weather is nice, I roll the window down part way and let him stick his head out like a dog. This has been known to stop traffic.

One day at PetsMart

Caplin always draws a crowd but he seems to enjoy that. He loves being pet and we always bring plenty of blueberries for admirers to feed him. The typical conversation with a new capybara fan goes like this:

“What is that?”

“He’s a capybara.”

“What?”

“A capybara. They’re the world’s largest rodent.”

“What?”

“Would you like a card?”

The card has lots of information about Caplin on it as well as his blog and YouTube channel URLs. I hope people read it later because even after I give them a card they continue to ask questions answered by it. We don’t mind, it’s all in a day’s work for a rodent ambassador.

As the sun sets, Caplin likes to get in one more graze. In warm weather this is preceded by a swim in the pool. In cold weather it is followed by another soak in the tub. A little late night TV in bed with Caplin begging for dried cherries and then it’s lights out. He crawls under the covers, lets out an audible sigh and we all settle down.

One final note. Sleeping next to a capybara is not that comfortable. He likes to lean against me and his fur feels like wires or straw or something poking me. I think I slept better before I had a capybara.

Me with Carpincho

The photo above shows me with my little stuffed capybara friend Carpincho. Carpincho means capybara in Spanish. That’s kind-of funny because Carpincho was born in England and now lives in Russia! He’s a world citizen capybara.

Carpincho lives with my friend Lina in Moscow. The two of them made this excellent slide show of their winter holiday and I just had to show it to all my fans. I hope you enjoy it. If you do, I’m sure Lina would love to read comments from you, so please post your impressions.

Me on Yahoo!

This was a big week for me. My owner’s interview with Linda Lombardi of the Associated Press came out. Here’s a link to it on the ABC News but that is not the only place it appeared. Here are some links to other incarnations of it.

Here’s a slide show of the photos on MySA (I think that is My San Antonio).

Here I am honored to be an Animal Cracker!

This is the same article without the photos (which is lame) on Madison.com.

Here it is on GoUpstate.com. I wonder if that is New York state. NY is not a very rodent friendly state. They have all kinds of laws against us.

This is a short blog someone wrote about me after reading the AP article. Kind of cute, really. I like it when people are really surprised and excited to find out about capybaras.

I also got a “Call Back” from the nice folks Urlesque for groundhog’s day. Thanks!

Here’s a kind-of fun post that asks whether a photo of me is real or fake. You can never trust the internet but I seem to remember posing with my owner for that photo.

And if you look at the photo at the top of this post, you can see that I made the top two most emailed photos on Yahoo! How cool is that?

Maybe the biggest thing I did was a short appearance of still photos from the AP article on CNN’s Rick’s List show on Tuesday. I don’t think that’s available on the web but if you follow any of the other links, you’ll see the photos. I didn’t like Rick Sanchez’s comments though because he mispronounced Buda and Capybara and he said some things that were just inappropriate and thoughtless.

In case you didn’t know, I am an ambassador for capybaras world-wide. I do my best to teach people about us so that they will love us and protect us. Also so they may be more open minded about all rodents. Some people don’t like rats even though they are very cute and smart. Or maybe they are scared of mice, although it is hard to see how a mouse could hurt a human. But if they learn about capybaras, they might think differently about all rodents.

I wonder how many people learned about capybaras from this just this week alone? A lot, I’m guessing. So you’d think maybe I would get some kind of bonus or award. Maybe a little something extra in the way of treats. Well guess again.

Going down the slide to get frozen blueberries.

See that photo above? That’s just one of the things my owner made me do to earn a few (delicious) frozen blueberries.

And she made me get on this little stool. I even had to stand on my hind legs on that thing. Seriously, it was humiliating.

Begging for Blueberries

She made me use my cutest begging face and then claimed we were “out of blueberries.” I’ve heard that before. I bet there were still some in the freezer.

I’ll be honest, I really don’t think my owner appreciates me. I am doing an outstanding job of being both a pet and an ambassador but, well, she’s not what you’d call a top-ranking owner. I wonder if I should trade up?

Time for my second installment of Capy Shout Outs! These are shout outs to people/animals/plants that are special to me. Okay, I don’t have any plants on my special friends list yet, but it could happen.

Claudia Enna: Thanks for being such a great friend! Italy is so far away, I am glad we have the internet so we can at least meet virtually. Don’t worry, be happy!

Venita (@vernbern), The Cap & Mini-Cap: I hope you found Mini-Cap, I’m worried about him. Thanks for the puzzle present!

Lyle Buencamino & Hanna Pettyjohn: Hope you make it to Austin for a visit! Looking forward to meeting more fans!

@BZTAT: Hope you had a capy birthday and thanks for being my friend.

Dobby: Hey little bro., almost your first birthday. Make sure Stacy gets you something nice. I am going to send you a little present so you’ll need to watch your mail.

Remember, if you want me to give someone a shout out, drop me an email using the contact page.

Capybara family at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

(Owner’s Blog)

In Febrary of 2007, my kids (Coral & Philip Waters) and I went to Venezuela. One of the places we went was a large ranch called Hato El Frio in the Los Llanos region. Los Llanos is often reffered to as the New World equivalent of the African plains. Such a tremendous abundance of wildlife! And among those swamps and plains roam the world’s largest rodents, the capybaras.

Capybaras have disappeared in parts of their range where they are over-hunted or where there has been significant habitat destruction due to farming, daming and deforestation. Hato El Frio was one place where they still occurred in large number due to the ranche’s progressive attitudes.

Hato El Frio (and Hato El Cedral, although I did not visit there) were experiments in sustainable ranching along with ecotourism. Dams were built to encourage wildlife to remain year-round and to provide more habitat for aquatic or semi-aquatic species. In addition, cattle and water buffalo were raised for meat. Capybaras were also “harvested” but in a sustainable manner. For decades the ranch maintained a science station that studied the affects of ranching on wildlife populations.

The following photos show some of the interesting animals that we saw on our week-long stay.

Tamandua or Lesser Anteater at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Giant Anteater at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Rufous-tailed Jacamar at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Three species of Ibis at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Scarlet Macaws Flying at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

Howler Monkey at Hato El Frio, Venezuela

I could go on but you are probably wondering what the point is. So let me get to it. The Venezuelan government, under Hugo Chavez, has nationalized Hato El Frio and Hato El Cedral. See this article, Venezuela Coverts Tourist Destination into Farm Land.

I doubt that they are even now maintaining the Hatos’ programs to rebuild populations of the seriously endangered Orinoco crododile, red-footed tortoises, Orinoco side-neck turtles or river dolphins. I doubt that they are concerning themselves with sustainability. These ranches have served as a beacon to the region as to what can be done to use the land while retaining wildlife. Now all of that is gone.

This is a terrible tragedy made even worse by the fact that most Americans–who live so close–don’t even know what the world is losing. Most Americans don’t even know what a capybara is. Caplin and I are devastated. No species is safe if people and governments don’t care.

(Follow this link to see more of my photos of Hato El Frio including more capybara photos.)