near threatened<\/a> for jaguars. Hunting, habitat loss, and the fragmentation of the large, unbroken forests the animals need have squeezed them out of much of their former range.<\/p>\n\u201cWe knew one day there could be peccaries in Piedras Blancas, but that day could take 100 years. So we are accelerating, using the science,\u201d Carlos Manuel Rodr\u00edguez, executive director of Osa Conservation, who also served three terms as Cost Rica\u2019s environment minister, told Mongabay on a call. \u201cWhat we are doing is basically giving medicine to the forest of Piedras Blancas,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can look at them as a pill. Each of those pigs is a pill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moving a herd of wild peccaries across a gulf took years of plotting. About a decade was spent understanding their populations, threats, and distribution, as well as working with local communities. Osa Conservation and Costa Rica\u2019s Osa Conservation Area (ACOSA) began collaborating in 2023 and set their sights on returning the species to Piedras Blancas.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the team set up camera traps around the nonprofit\u2019s land at Piro, on the southern tip of the Osa Peninsula, to learn where a nearby herd fed and rested. They then built a capture corral and began baiting it with corn and coconuts. After about a year and a half, the peccaries were walking into the corral to eat on their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese animals are very motivated by food,\u201d Ortiz said.<\/p>\nWhite-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari<\/em>) are endangered in Costa Roca. Photo courtesy of Ian Rock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nRewilding manager Guido Saborio and rewilding field biologist Allan Brenes check an area on Osa Peninsula in 2025 where the team captured white-lipped peccaries for translocation to Piedras Blancas National Park. In order to capture the peccaries, the team acclimated them to the area by luring them with high-value food and building the capture pen slowly, piece-by-piece, over the course of many months. Image by Morgan Erickson-Davis\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cWe studied the structure of the herd,\u201d Guido Sabor\u00edo-R., rewilding program manager for Osa Conservation told Mongabay when asked about how they selected these specific peccaries. \u201cBut it\u2019s also just what you can catch.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the day of the capture, the peccaries showed up at the baited enclosure earlier than expected. Ortiz, watching a live feed as the connection flickered in and out, pushed the button that dropped the gate once more than 10 animals were inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe closed the door and see what we have,\u201d Sabor\u00edo said. \u201cThirteen animals. Three males, the rest females and all healthy. We were lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
What followed was a relay that ran roughly 16 hours and involved more than 20 people. The team weighed and examined each animal, loaded them into dark crates, and sprayed water through the boxes to cool the peccaries, whose body temperatures had climbed in the humid heat.<\/p>\nDennise Ortiz, Costa Rican wildlife veterinarian, organizes white-lipped peccary medical records during translocation at the Osa Conservation Campus. Photo courtesy of Ian Rock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cIt was 13 animals that all needed water at once,\u201d Ortiz said. She described being very stressed and hypervigilant, checking on the peccaries constantly to be sure they weren\u2019t overheating.<\/p>\n
A convoy of pickup trucks, escorted by ACOSA park rangers, carried the crates overland to Puerto Jim\u00e9nez, past onlookers who spilled out of roadside bars near midnight to see what the procession of boxes and police was about. From there, a boat provided by Cativo Lodge, a local ecotourism resort, ferried the herd across the Golfo Dulce. The crates were carried the final 2 kilometers, nearly a mile and a half, into the park by hand, to a soft-release corral.<\/p>\n
The animals stayed in the corral to acclimate. It took four days before they entered the feeding area, Ortiz said. The team watched on camera traps as a single limping animal recovered on its own. About three and a half weeks later, they fitted two of the peccaries with satellite collars to follow the herd\u2019s movements.<\/p>\n
So far, according to the radio collar and camera-trap monitoring data from the rewilding program and park rangers from Piedras Blancas, the park\u2019s new herd appears to be healthy and sticking together.<\/p>\nOsa Conservation staff carried each peccary 2 kilometers into the forest to a temporary release corral in Piedras Blancas. Pictured here are Juan Azofeifa (right) and Allan Brenes (left). Photo courtesy of Ian Rock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nNow the question is: will the peccaries remain safe? Piedras Blancas is connected by forest to Osa Peninsula\u2019s Corcovado National Park, near where the peccaries were captured. But poaching persists outside the national parks, the same pressure that emptied Piedras Blancas in the first place and stopped white-lipped peccaries from naturally migrating from Osa to Piedras Blancas.<\/p>\n
Safety may come down not only to park rangers, but to the people living around the park. Osa Conservation started an education and outreach program with local communities years before any peccary moved, teaching communities about the unique species and its role in the forests. In 2024, the team surveyed 335 residents across 13 nearby communities around Piedras Blancas; 72% supported bringing the species home, and more than half saw a tourism draw.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to have this kind of movement in Central America is a success,\u201d Joares May, a wildlife veterinarian with Brazilian NGO Ampara Silvestre, told Mongabay. May has consulted for Osa Conservation and has worked on peccary translocations in Brazil. He noted the difficulty of the process, not just with the animals but coordinating all of the people and government agencies.<\/p>\nAcross the region, Osa Conservation works with a network of schools to connect local children with nature and teach them about rewilding in their backyards. Photo courtesy of Ian Rock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201c[In] these kinds of places with a lot of pressure from human activity we need to replace some pieces, and the white lipped peccary is an important one,\u201d he said. \u201cIn future [this allows us to] have top predators like jaguars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Osa Conservation\u2019s Rodr\u00edguez called the translocation \u201csuper exciting.\u201d He was in government when Costa Rica\u2019s first endangered species programs began, and said it\u2019s significant that this project \u201cwas done by a Costa Rican organization. It was done with Costa Ricans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another translocation is planned this year to build toward a target of 25 to 30 white-lipped peccaries in Piedras Blancas. Osa Conservation is also working toward translocations for other species such as harpy eagles (Harpia harpyja<\/em>) and giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla<\/em>).<\/p>\n\u201cMy generation worked on conservation and stopping deforestation,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez said, \u201cand the generation of my kids will work on rewilding the planet.\u201d<\/p>\nAfter successfully relocating 13 white-lipped peccaries, Costa Rica\u2019s Osa Conservation Area rangers and the Osa Conservation team celebrate on the Piedras Blancas beach, about 2 km from the relocation site. Photo courtesy of Ian Rock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBanner image<\/strong> of\u00a0 the first ever release of white-lipped peccary into Piedras Blancas National Park. Photo by Ian Rock<\/em><\/p>\n\nRewilding Rio: Conservationists restock an \u2018empty forest,\u2019 one species at a time<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n