Inventário da fauna de vertebrados durante a dragagem de um trecho do rio Cocó, Fortaleza, Ceará

Abstract

The Cocó river is one of the most important rivers in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza. Its source is located in the Serra de Aratanha and, in its 50 km of extension, it passes through 3 municipalities and several important neighborhoods of the capital. The river gives rise to Cocó State Park, the fourth largest urban park in Latin America, and an important conservation area that provides leisure for citizens and a source of income through ecological tourism. Over the years, the deforestation of the river banks, the dumping of industrial waste, sewage and garbage by the riverside populations have accelerated the process of siltation of the Cocó River. Among the many consequences, there was a decrease in biodiversity and floods are frequent in the rainy season. Therefore, dredging would be a good alternative to solve these problems as the widening and deepening of the river would reduce the problem with floods. In this sense, the Government of the State of Ceará carried out the process of dredging the river, which consists of cleaning, de-silting, widening, clearing, removing, demolishing or excavating material from the bottom of rivers, lakes, seas, bays and channels. The dredging work lasted a period of 1 year, during which, concurrently with the process, there was a survey of fauna, these data are necessary to know the local biota, and it the development of methodologies where biodiversity recovers faster and healthier, in this way, benefiting the population and contributing to the maintenance of environmental balance. The results presented here refer to the activities carried out during the monitoring of dredging and vegetation suppression activities, with data from the beginning (January 16, 2020) until the end date, January 16, 2021. During the year of activities, 1601 individuals were registered, distributed in 27 orders. The group of birds was the one that presented the greatest representation in the data, corresponding to about 48% of the records, followed by reptiles with 12.92%. Fish, amphibians and mammals had the lowest records, with 14%, 20.08% and 4% respectively. This work provides subsidies for the planning of measures that promote the sustainable development of the Rio Cocó hydrographic basin.