The biological heritage of Mexico is so plentiful that ranks first in diversity of reptiles, fourth in mammals and eleventh in birds, among which there is a great variety of game species, that used properly form an inexhaustible renewable natural resource for sport hunting. Being aware of this, biologist Michelle Guerra, who is a Master on Science specialist on game species for “Servicios y Beneficios Ambientales” (Environmental Services and Benefits) designed the “Hunting Project”, which includes sustainable use of wildlife, using sport hunting and hunting tourism, at low scale, as conservation method in the buffer zone of the “Biosphere Reserve of Calakmul”, which is part of the “Mesoamerican Biological Corridor” in the state of Campeche, in the Yucatan peninsula.

After making a diagnosis, in 2008, biologist Guerra, director of the project, decided to start the first phase of her ambitious management plan, on the 15,000 acres of healthy forest at the “Unidad de Manejo y Aprovechamiento Sustentable de la Vida Silvestre” (Management and Sustainable Use of Wild Life Unit) in the “Ejido (community land) Emiliano Zapata”, adjacent to the core zone of the reserve, which ensures a plentiful supply of wildlife, with the intention of starting the first hunting season in the spring of 2009.

This conservation program is to optimally manage the game species and as a consequence to protect the other key species with which they share the habitat as the jaguar and the tapir, among others, in order to preserve them, combining hunting tourism with other forms of non-extractive use, such as bird watching and ecotourism, during closed season, so there is a constant economic income in the rural community throughout the whole year.

For its part, the peasants, have respected and cared for the forest for over twenty years without any logging or other extractive use in order to ensure the preservation of habitat.

The wildlife population of “Mayan Sanctuary” has recovered successfully, so it is presumed to be healthy and stable. Its people were exhorted to quit subsistence hunting and watch their lands to keep them free of poachers, these factors are the key to quick success and long-term maintenance.

Reserve of the greater
tropical biosphere of Mexico.

An enthusiastic group of sportmen committed to the wildlife conservation, provided the capital needed to launch this project that provides international hunters, hunting trophies of species endemic to the Yucatan Peninsula, such as ocellated turkey, the Yucatan gray-brown brocket deer and the Yucatan white-tailed deer, and other species attractive to collectors of trophies by their exotic beauty such as; the rare red brocket deer, white lipped peccary and great curassow.

The hunting operation was entrusted to Dr. Eduardo Rivera, who has more than 20 years of experience and is the outfitter with whom more hunters have collected trophies of the species mentioned, which are in the Record Book of big game of the Safari Club International.