A recent (2008–2009) outbreak of sylvatic yellow fever caused the death of seven people and over 2,000 howler monkeys (black-and-gold, Alouatta caraya, and brown, A. guariba clamitans) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, spreading panic among the population. The fear of the disease and the misinformation about its relationship with howler monkeys led inhabitants of several regions to exterminate these primates from the forests near their homes. In this paper we describe the theoretical background supporting the idea that howler monkeys play an important role in fighting yellow fever via the surveillance of virus circulation and stress that they are not responsible for the re-emergence of this African infectious disease, its transmission, or its fast spread through the highly fragmented landscape of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. We also describe how this scientific information has been used in the campaign “Protect our Guardian Angels” that was launched to inform the public and the media about the actual relationship of these regionally threatened species to the disease. The campaign is run and supported by educational, scientific, governmental (health-and environment-related) and religious institutions, and NGOs, an alliance in favor of biodiversity conservation and public health that has been effective in changing the quality of the news media, but that still requires a great effort to achieve the necessary level of population awareness.

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This study assessed the risks of different management practices to increase pregnancy rate in beef cow-calf systems, aiming at assisting decision-making. The perception of 18 experts on animal sciences regarding the risks of 32 nutritional, breeding, and general management practices applied to increase pregnancy rate were evaluated through questionnaires. The experts were selected by a non-probability sampling of researchers on veterinary and animal sciences. In addition, five farmers and eight technical consultants were also selected. The questionnaire was applied during a face-to-face meeting. The risk of each practice was assessed according to four factors, namely, cost, technical knowledge, operational complexity, and flexibility, and an equation was developed to calculate this risk. The applied method allowed to determine the risk of each practice, obtaining results similar to those previously perceived by the experts. Operational complexity and cost had greater influence on the estimated risks compared with the other factors. Moreover, the increase of one unit in operational complexity and cost increased the perceived risk and the estimated risk scores in 0.43 and 0.28 points, respectively. Overall, the application of general management practices presented lower risk score compared with nutritional and breeding practices, which were not different from which other. Equations to estimate the risks of farm managers should routinely apply management practices to increase the efficiency of cow-calf production systems.

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