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Iriarte, A.W.
Andean mountain cat in Chile: Status and geographical distribution
1998  Full Book

The local Aimara people who work in the field can identify both wildcat species. The Aimaras name the Andean Mountain cat TITI and the Pampas cat ABATIRE. Stuffed animals are used in ritual festivities in the middle of each February for to have better crops and more livestock fecundity. When an Aimara herdsman saw a wildcat they have to kill them or they will have a bad year. In almost every home in the Chilean Altiplano is possible to find stuffed wildcats or skins. Each June 24, in the town of Putre (3,500m) the local farmers participate in a festivity called "Fiesta del Titi" (Andean Mountain cat party). Park guards saw in November 1997 an _O. jacobita_ in a salt lagoon trying to hunt some aquatic birds. The Andean Mountain cat body is 20% larger than Pampas cat's and the tails 40% larger. The entrance of a new belief in the region (Protestant Christian Church) that reject the use of stuffed wildcats in festivities is helping to protect both wildcat species. The Andean Mountain cats are found almost exclusively in areas above 3,500m in the Chilean Altiplano. The Andean Mountain cats prefer the next ecosystem-type: remote zones+wet meadows+rocky areas with cliffs+viscacha colonies. There is no evidences of commercial use of the wildcats in the Chilean Altiplano. One of the reason because the Andean Mountain cat disappear from the southern portion of its range in Central Chile it was for the widespread extinction of chinchilla colonies during the last century.

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