The coati is a roughly 5-kilogram South American carnivore with diurnal and arboreal habits. It is adaptable and has been reported in many forest habitats across a broad altitudinal range extending to about 2,500 meters. Its omnivorous diet includes mainly invertebrates and fruit, and its behavioral flexibility allows it to use environments altered by human activity. The species has a wide geographic range extending from Colombia and Venezuela to Uruguay and northern Argentina. These ecological tolerances make it possible for coatis to occur beyond continuous forest, but they do not remove the threats posed by habitat fragmentation, hunting and contact with people and domestic animals.

Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost Brazilian state and the only one in which the coati has been classified as vulnerable. Earlier assessments documented a marked reduction in the average size of coati groups in the state, with bands reduced to only four to six individuals. Records were already scarce and localized, and some local extinctions had been observed. Large groups were increasingly restricted to the largest contiguous forests, while deforestation and forest fragmentation were identified as the principal threats. Hunting also affects coatis, although its impact was described as more local and confined to certain areas. The Canoas observation is therefore notable because it was made in a state where the species faces a recognized conservation risk and in a metropolitan environment from which recent records had been absent.

The detection site was in Canoas, a municipality in the Porto Alegre metropolitan area and the fourth most densely populated city in Rio Grande do Sul. The urban zone covers 99.86% of Canoas, leaving practically no rural territory. By contrast, the airbase contains one of the municipality’s last and largest remaining green spaces. The record came from secondary forest in the initial stages of regeneration along a drainage watercourse fed by rainwater, with flow that varies in response to rainfall. The surrounding vegetative matrix included exotic pines, Pinus sp., associated with a plantation. Because the airbase is a military zone, the surveyed site was not disturbed by the displacement of people, vehicles or machinery.

The observation was made during a broader mammal survey conducted from June through November 2020. Researchers used six Bushnell Trophy Cam XLT camera traps and established 22 sampling points, placing each device at least 200 meters from the next. Cameras were installed at heights of about 30 meters above ground at sites selected for the presence of arboreal vegetation. Each point was sampled for 30 consecutive days. Devices were programmed to record for 20 seconds with a one-minute interval between recordings and were checked every 15 days. Across five months, the survey accumulated 720 trap-days. The 2020 detection was one result of this systematic sampling effort rather than an incidental observation without documentary support.

Researchers assessed that the recorded animal was probably male because adult males are generally solitary, whereas females and immature males more often roam in groups. That assessment was based on the behavior associated with the observation rather than direct sex identification, and the camera record did not establish the animal’s sex conclusively. The observation likewise represented the presence of one individual at one point in time. It did not establish the size or density of Canoas’s coati population, whether other individuals used the forest, or whether the species breeds there. The evidence confirms use of the site by a coati, not the existence of a self-sustaining urban population.

Before this record, recent observations of N. nasua in the more densely populated parts of the Porto Alegre metropolitan area were lacking. Most available records for the species in Rio Grande do Sul were concentrated in the high plains of northern Rio Grande do Sul and their foothills, where forest is denser and continuous. The largest forest remnants in areas with greater urban concentrations were located on the granite hills of Porto Alegre and Viamão. Earlier studies of mammalian fauna in these areas did not report coatis, and management plans for conservation units in highly urbanized settings did not mention the species. A management plan for the Banhado Grande environmental protection area, issued in 2021, did mention the coati, but that area encompasses the eastern part of the metropolitan region, where urbanization was lower than in Canoas.

The record supports the capacity of coatis to use environments transformed by human activity. In urban areas, food resources associated with human presence can favor species with broad behavioral plasticity, including N. nasua. These potential advantages coexist with risks. Proximity to humans can create conflicts and threats to wildlife and can increase the likelihood of diseases transmitted by domesticated animals, including cats and dogs. The Canoas observation does not demonstrate that the recorded coati ate human-provided food, entered nearby neighborhoods or contacted pets. Instead, it documents an individual using a forested site within the urbanized municipality, without establishing the consequences of contact with people or other animals.

The authors considered the record noteworthy because it referred to an urban area where coatis were believed to have disappeared, even though the species is rated globally and nationally as Least Concern and retains a wide distribution. Conservation concern is not uniform across that range: population density varies greatly among regions and is reduced by habitat loss and hunting. Urban green spaces can function as corridors or stepping-stones, enabling migration and reducing the isolation of populations in increasingly fragmented landscapes. The Canoas Airbase forest therefore represents a setting in which retained vegetation may have ecological value for a regionally threatened species, although this single record cannot quantify movement, reproduction or population persistence within the site.

Taken together, the 2020 record shows that a coati can be detected in Canoas’s urban core, where nearly all municipal land is classified as urban, and in a forested military site that was not disturbed by routine movement of people, vehicles or machinery. The finding extends the documented record of the species into a part of the Porto Alegre metropolitan area lacking recent documentation and illustrates the potential importance of urban green space for a vulnerable regional population. At the same time, one camera-trap record cannot establish how common coatis are in Canoas, whether the occurrence reflects regular occupation or chance movement, or whether the site supports a viable population. The evidence demonstrates use of a forest patch by an individual coati, not a broad conclusion that urban areas resolve the threats of fragmentation, hunting and human-wildlife conflict.

Subject of Research: A camera-trap record of a coati in a forested military site within the highly urbanized municipality of Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Article Title: Record of occurrence of Nasua nasua (Linnaeus, 1766) ( Carnivora , Procyonidae ) in a densely urbanized area of the city of Canoas, southern Brazil

Article References: da Rocha, D. F., do Rosario, T. B., Maciel, A. C. P., Alves, D. S., & Cademartori, C. V. (2022). Record of occurrence of Nasua nasua (Linnaeus, 1766) (Carnivora, Procyonidae) in a densely urbanized area of the city of Canoas, southern Brazil. Neotropical Biology and Conservation, 17(2), 111-116. https://doi.org/10.3897/neotropical.17.e81824

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/neotropical.17.e81824

Keywords: coati, Nasua nasua, urban wildlife, camera trapping, Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul, urban green space, habitat fragmentation, mammal surveys, Brazil, Record, occurrence