Conhecimento local sobre o boto vermelho, Inia geoffrensis (de Blainville, 1817), no baixo rio Negro e um estudo de caso de suas interações com humanos.

Abstract

The boto, Inia geoffrensis, is the biggest river dolphin and endemic of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins, where it is widely distributed. Because of its broad distribution, the boto is known by the Amazonian people and is part of their folklore and culture. Despite its distribution and abundance, there are few studies about the ecology, biology and popular knowledge of these animals. Two differents kinds interviews were undertaken to study the local knowledge of the boto in the low Negro river AM. The first type of interview provided general information relating to the biology and ecology of these animals compared to the scientific knowledge, and revealing that, although expressed in different ways, the people interviewed have a good perception of the environment where they live. This allows an interchange between popular and scientific knowledge. The aim of the second type of interview was to study cultural knowledge as consensus. There are “Intra” cultural variations between localities and gender. A consensus among students and among a specific group of people, over 35 years old, was also verified showing a featureless local knowledge and the demystification of myths and legends about the Amazon river dolphin. This study on local knowledge showed an humanboto interaction, that makes possible for man to acquire biological and ecological knowledge of the boto. At Novo Airão, a city located on the margin of the Negro River, there is a group of botos that interact every day with humans. These dolphins swim close to people and seem to be very curious and calm during these interactions, allowing to be touched and fed directly from human hands. The lack of boto behavior studies can be due to its habitat characteristics that make sighting and identification of the animals difficult. This human with boto interaction offered a unique opportunity to study the behavior of these animals in natural environment. The approximation of these animals to humans facilitated visualization and identification as important tools for intra and interespecific behavior studies. It was demonstrated a low variation in the interaction patterns with humans and that these dolphins do not show patterns of association. The traditional knowledge about river dolphins and their interaction, inter and intra specific, in the wild are important tools for the knowledge about the species, and an important factor for the conservation of this river dolphin, helping the implementation of conservation strategies.