112 

 populations in the area (Redford and Robinson, 1990). On a broader scale, this information can be 

 used to analyze human territoriality and resource use at a community level (Vickers, 1983). 



The minimum catchment area for hunters at X-Hazil Sur was about 370 km", but hunters from 

 this village as well as from Uh-May and Chancah Veracruz (not studied) ranged throughout the ejido 

 (552.95 km-). This catchment area of 370 km^ may be somewhat artificial for two reasons: One, the 

 eastern boundary of the ejido roughly extends to the savanna on Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve. The 

 savanna is flooded much of the year, due to rainfall, and hunting is difficult (see Figure 2-4). Two, 

 the ejido boundary is clearly marked. Ejido residents avoid legal problems by not entering the adjacent 

 ejido to hunt, plant gardens, or harvest timber. 



Catchment area values reported for mestizos and indigenous groups indicated that while some 

 communities did kill some game over relatively large areas during the time of the studies, most use 

 much smaller areas (Table 3-11). For example, among the largest catchment areas reported for an 

 indigenous group were a region of about 1810 km^ used by a community of 500 Mats^s Indians in 

 western Brazil (Romanoff, 1976) and a zone of about 600 km^ used by a group of 155 Achd Indians in 

 eastern Paraguay (Hill and Hawkes, 1983). The reported catchment areas for eight other indigenous 

 groups ranged from 79 to ca. 400 kml Among mestizos, the reported catchment area was 100-500 

 km^ per community. While these areas and hunter groups differed, for example, with respect to 

 vegetation type, use of weapons, wildlife populations, degree of acculturation, human population 

 density, and importance of fishing and shifting cultivation, the catchment areas-excluding the extremely 

 large and small areas-were remarkably similar in size at 200-600 km^. 



The relationship between catchment area and specific harvest areas around communities of 

 indigenous and mestizo subsistence hunters are poorly known. At X-Hazil Sur, harvest areas in which 

 individual species were taken ranged from 4.8 km^ to 251.8 km^ and were substantially less than the 

 total area available on the ejido (Table 3-8). Only two species were taken over relatively large areas; 

 coati (251.8 km") and collared peccary (211.5 km^). Both coatis and collared peccaries are known to 

 be highly mobile and occur in groups, but their home range sizes in Mesoamerica are poorly known. 



