Watching a capybara come when called is a highly Instagrammable moment, my in-person proof that capybaras have rightfully earned their status as a 2020s internet meme. But on my visit to the Pinheiros River in S\u00e3o Paulo, South America\u2019s largest city, I also saw up close how not all capybaras are living their best life, to put it lightly.<\/p>\n
Many of Brazil\u2019s estimated 1.2 million capybaras have migrated from their natural habitats, forests and grasslands along rivers and lakes, to cities. There, they don\u2019t have to worry about their natural predators, like jaguars and anacondas. But urban capybaras soon find themselves with a whole new set of problems. They struggle with river trash that can injure and even strangle them, as well as unnatural predators ranging from dogs to cars and even humans\u2014attacks on capybaras are, sadly, not unheard of.<\/p>\n
Other humans, like Mariana Aidar, president of the animal-welfare nonprofit Projeto CAPA\u2014the woman presently holding out the sugarcane to the capybara snacking away on the riverbank\u2014are fighting for their capybara neighbors to survive. Aidar and a team of volunteers look after about 120 capybaras living along the Pinheiros River. It\u2019s one of the largest concentrations of capybaras in S\u00e3o Paulo, though its exact number of members fluctuates.<\/p>\n
Aidar had called the capybara \u201cprincess\u201d in a way that sounded like a term of endearment for all female capybaras, so I asked for the capybara\u2019s formal name.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t have one, Aidar told me. She used to name the river capybaras. She stopped after Judith, one of her favorites, was killed by a car while trying to cross a highway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a few that still have names,\u201d Aidar says, \u201cbut I stopped giving them names, because when they die, it makes me so sad.\u201d Now, she tries to keep some emotional distance.<\/p>\n
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Erick Trickey<\/p>\n
Brazilian experts like to say that capybaras didn\u2019t come to cities; the cities came to them. If, say, a housing development plops down where you live, you are forced to wander. Capybaras have been migrating to cities since the 2000s, as Brazilian metro areas grew, displacing their old habitats. Meanwhile, environmental restoration has made some of Brazil\u2019s urban riverbanks and lagoons friendlier to capybaras.<\/p>\n
The capybaras\u2019 stretch of the Pinheiros River is a former no-man\u2019s-land; geographically, it\u2019s in the center of the city, and yet isolated, sandwiched between an expressway\u2019s northbound and southbound lanes. To visit by car, you\u2019ve got to take the expressway south to an easy-to-miss exit and make two quick U-turns down to the riverbank. Still, international tourists show up daily in the park, Aidar says, hoping for a capybara sighting.<\/p>\n
That people make the trek is a sign of the animals\u2019 global popularity. Capybaras\u2019 internet fame traces back at least to 2007, when Caplin Rous<\/a>, a 6-week-old capybara, licked a camera<\/a>. Later, in 2018, a photographer named Katsuhito Watanabe exploded in popularity outside his native Japan with his videos of capybaras in yuzu baths<\/a>. These days, you can buy a custom capybara for Minecraft<\/a>. A capybara named Chispi<\/a> appeared in the Disney movie Encanto, and a friendly capybara<\/a> played a big role in Flow, which won the 2025 Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Capybaras also had a brief noirish cameo in the recent Oscar-nominated Brazilian film The Secret Agent. Beyond the screens (silver, and smartphone), there are capybara stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes\u2014an $8.99 \u201cemotional support capybara\u201d<\/a> from the company Fungi Fun holds up a sign that reads, \u201cI believe in you big time. You\u2019re doing better than you think!\u201d<\/p>\n But Aidar came to her love for capybaras in a totally analog way. \u201cI started to ride my bicycle here about eight years ago,\u201d she recalls, as we sit at a caf\u00e9 table along the riverbank, \u201cand I didn\u2019t accept that there were a lot of hurt animals here and nobody did anything to help them.\u201d<\/p>\n Helping capybaras and other wild and stray animals brought her to the river more often, and the pandemic-era closure of a flavored-vodka factory she managed led to her career change. In addition to running Projeto CAPA<\/a>, Aidar now manages the 14-mile bike path along one riverbank of the Pinheiros, and a mileslong state park along the other. And she\u2019s recently cut the ribbon on Caf\u00e9 do Capa<\/a>, an open-air capybara-themed stop along the cycling path. The caf\u00e9\u2019s profits go to Projeto CAPA.<\/p>\n Caf\u00e9 do Capa sells capybara-shaped fried foods, capybara-themed cupcakes, capybara gifts. There are plastic capybaras kids can climb on. The clientele is mostly cyclists in helmets and spandex-y bike tops and shorts. (Getting to Caf\u00e9 do Capa requires going over a floating bike bridge that is not open to pedestrians, but Aidar has created a loophole: Caf\u00e9 do Capa supplies yellow dummy bikes\u2014unrideable because they have no chain\u2014that people can walk with.) Capybaras occasionally wander into the caf\u00e9, though petting them isn\u2019t allowed. \u201cMost people keep their distance,\u201d says Aidar, \u201cbut sometimes we need to remind them.\u201d<\/p>\n If you\u2019re just visiting the area, successfully seeing a capybara on the river is a low-odds affair. The best times to encounter them are at dawn or dusk, when most tourists are sleeping or sipping caipirinhas. During the day, if it\u2019s hot\u2014which is usually is in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2014capybaras stay in the water. If it\u2019s cold, they keep warm in the bushes. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult for me to say, \u2018OK, go to this place at this time: You\u2019re gonna see capybaras,\u2019 \u201d Aidar says. \u201cNo, it\u2019s impossible, because they go wherever they want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n But traveling with Aidar in her truck (which has a \u201cCapy On Board\u201d sticker on the back), I saw plenty. We spent about an hour driving up and down the riverbank, and pretty quickly, she found a group of capybaras sunning themselves at one of their favorite spots, a narrow strip of dirt and mud right at the water and near a tall cable-stayed bridge.<\/p>\n We counted nine capybaras: an adult male, four adult females, and four medium-sized pups. She pointed out one pup with a piece of trash encircling its neck. The storm drains of S\u00e3o Paulo, population 12 million, empty into the rivers, carrying all sorts of trash from city streets. Capybaras spend most of their time in the water\u2014they\u2019re sort of the penguins of the rodent world\u2014so they can easily get entangled in that storm-drain trash. That\u2019s especially bad for young capybaras. If plastic gets stuck on their bodies, it can dig into their skin as they grow.<\/p>\n Two or three times a week, Aidar and volunteers scissor trash off capybaras\u2019 necks: dangerous work that requires the humans to protect themselves with nets, fences, and shields from angry capybaras who don\u2019t understand their good intentions. Capybaras could attack<\/a> if threatened, though they hardly ever do. (Still, because of the tourists, Aidar has put up signs in Portuguese and English warning people to stay 12 feet away from the capybaras and reminding them that they\u2019re wild animals.)<\/p>\n Cutting trash off capybaras is just one part of Projeto CAPA\u2019s work; the state government has authorized the nonprofit to manage and monitor capybaras and other wild animals along the river and conduct rescues when necessary. Among the volunteers are local veterinarians who are ready to help an injured capybara with 15 minutes\u2019 notice. Biologists test the capybaras weekly to confirm they haven\u2019t caught Brazilian spotted fever\u2014a tick-borne disease often fatal to humans. It can kill capybaras<\/a> too, though many survive it and develop immunity. So far, Aidar says, the Pinheiros River capybaras have always tested negative. If a group ever tests positive, Projeto CAPA will seek the state\u2019s permission to quarantine them, sterilize them, and treat their part of the riverbank with insecticide.<\/p>\n Sometimes, though, capybaras need more help than they can get from these drop-in visits\u2014a fact that, along with the species\u2019 rising popularity, has ushered some capybaras of Brazil into a new kind of lifestyle entirely.<\/p>\n Miguel and his pups at the S\u00e3o Paulo Zoo. If you\u2019re visiting S\u00e3o Paulo and want to see capybaras, the S\u00e3o Paulo Zoo is your only guarantee. The zoo didn\u2019t have capybaras until 2024, when it took in three rescued from the Pinheiros River\u2014Miguel, Kiwi, and Bonne Ann\u00e9e. All three were found as babies, abandoned by their groups, and they recovered at a city wildlife rehab center. Projeto CAPA rescued Bonne Ann\u00e9e, who weighed only 3 pounds and needed IV fluids, and Kiwi, who\u2019d been hit by a car and had a wound on his back and a broken leg. Miguel, rescued by environmental police, had injuries and needed nutritional supplements.<\/p>\n Now Miguel is the star of the zoo\u2019s Simba Safari, a series of planned habitats that tourist trucks pass through. Like capybaras in the wild, zoo capybaras are polygamous, with one alpha male and several females forming a sort of harem. (I did not inquire about the lonely life of a beta male capybara in the wild.) When I visited Simba Safari in early January, Miguel was a new dad: Three pups were born in December, and a second of his three girlfriends was pregnant.<\/p>\n Zoo biologist Michele Viana introduced me directly to Miguel, who was raised by hand and bottle-fed in rehab. He spent a full minute sniffing my legs and shoes, after coming up to Viana to be petted. (A capybara\u2019s fur is rough, like straw, but its nose and the little fur around its nose are very soft.) He\u2019s so friendly Viana called him a \u201ccapy-dog.\u201d Simba Safari\u2019s three adult females, originally from another zoo, were more aloof, though one came close for a while. They\u2019re less trusting of humans than Miguel, which is just fine with zoo managers: That\u2019s normal capybara behavior. The capybaras share Simba Safari\u2019s Brazil enclosure with two tapirs and 16 rheas (South American birds similar to emus). They\u2019re vegetarians: They eat grass, alfalfa, cassava, sweet potato, carrots, beets, and, at the zoo, a commercial feed. They chitter like birds, or like an \u201980s video game laser gun.<\/p>\n As we watched the group wander about, a female capybara waded into a mud puddle along the truck path and rolled around happily. Miguel walked up the hill toward his babies. At one point father and baby ate grass together, the big grass fronds flickering around their heads as they chomped.<\/p>\n The zoo doesn\u2019t just go capture animals in the wild, Viana told me. They acquire them from either another zoo or a rescue, and there are only so many rescued capybaras. That\u2019s one reason why capybaras are recent additions to a zoo that has been open since the 1950s<\/a>, on a continent where the rodents\u2019 ancestors arrived some 40 million years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n But the zoo also seems to have responded to demand. Capybara merch is wildly popular in the zoo\u2019s gift shops, which sell 25,000 capybara-themed items a year: almost 7,000 plush toys, plus key chains, backpacks, cups, caps, bottles, slippers, and lamps.<\/p>\n I asked whether Brazilians\u2019 attitude toward capybaras has changed.<\/p>\n \u201cOh yeah,\u201d Viana said, smiling. \u201cThe hype started in Japan. In Japan there are even caf\u00e9s where you have contact with capybaras. And the internet helped, and the public is always curious. They want to know about the species.\u201d Until then, \u201cpeople weren\u2019t so interested because it\u2019s a common and endemic animal here in Brazil. Then with the internet, that little bite of curiosity started. And then they saw that they are calm, that the babies are cute.\u201d<\/p>\n Brazilians have been living with capybaras forever, dodging them on roads like rural American drivers dodge deer. But the world\u2019s digital embrace of the big native rodents seems to have inspired a new appreciation of them, even a sort of national pride. (Imagine if deer or squirrels became the world\u2019s new internet crush, leading to a new U.S. deer or squirrel craze.) But another factor is that more capybaras are living closer to humans than they used to, and the furry neighbors are charming.<\/p>\n For Helena Nicoleti, 8, who wore a T-shirt to the zoo featuring a capybara drinking bubble tea, seeing Kiwi was a highlight, along with the lion and the Mexican axolotl. But Kiwi was the only capybara out in the regular exhibit that morning, and her family hadn\u2019t made it to Simba Safari. Helena\u2019s mother, Camila Nicoleti, who was also wearing a capybara T-shirt, said they were frustrated: One capybara wasn\u2019t enough. \u201cWe wanted more,\u201d Nicoleti said. They live in Monte Alto, in the countryside of S\u00e3o Paulo state, and often go to a neighboring town, Jaboticabal, to see capybaras in the urban wild. \u201cThere are lots of capybaras there by the lake\u2014lots and lots of them,\u201d Nicoleti said. Helena thinks capybaras are \u201creally cute,\u201d Nicoleti said, \u201cand the chubbier the capybara, the more she likes them.\u201d<\/p>\n International visitors agree. \u201cI probably weirded out my Brazilian in-laws when I requested to come to this park to hang out with capybaras all day, but can you blame me?\u201d wrote a recent poster on the r\/capybara subreddit<\/a>, sharing photos of capybaras lazing around and swimming in Parque Barigui in Curitiba (where capy-sighting percentages are much higher than in S\u00e3o Paulo).<\/p>\n Photographer Julio Szymanski<\/a> of Cascavel, a city in Paran\u00e1 state, says his best-selling urban landscape photos feature some of the 150 or so capybaras that live in a downtown park. Customers like the photos that capture the capybaras doing something humanlike: crossing a street at a crosswalk<\/a>, or lined up as if to pose for him<\/a>. \u201cThere\u2019s a problem, that they procreate a lot, but people have learned to respect them,\u201d he says. Many Brazilians, he says, are creating capybara trademarks and logos. (Here\u2019s Brazil\u2019s president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, holding a capybara necktie<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Curitiba, the capital of Paran\u00e1, has become so famous for its parks\u2019 capybaras that the city government recently created an Instagram video with an A.I. cartoon capybara<\/a> warning people not to touch it. \u201cFriend, I know we are beautiful, photogenic city icons,\u201d the capybara says. \u201cBut you already know you can\u2019t pet us! The fact that we are hanging out in the park doesn\u2019t mean we are pets. Admire us from afar and leave us in peace, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n Brazilians involved in capybara welfare tend to agree: Capybaras are wild animals, not pets. They don\u2019t like the capybara caf\u00e9s of Japan and beyond (one opened in Florida last year, but a plan to open one in Britain has attracted opposition from animal-welfare groups<\/a>). They say wild animals shouldn\u2019t be taken out of their natural habitat; capybaras love water, mud, and grass, and it\u2019s cruel to take them away from it. \u201cCan you imagine, you get a wild animal from nature and put four walls around the animal, for people to get inside, drink coffee, and touch them?\u201d asks Aidar. \u201cIt\u2019s absurd.\u201d Sadly, confinement isn\u2019t the worst thing that can happen to a capybara who has a run-in with a human.<\/p>\n One of the signs that Mario Moscatelli has put up. In Brazil, it\u2019s illegal to possess a wild animal without authorization from the government. In 2023, Ibama, the Brazilian environmental agency, intervened to seize a capybara named Fil\u00f3 from an influencer in the Amazon who had put baby clothes on her and showered with her. The influencer was fined about $3,400<\/a>, but he convinced a judge to order Ibama to release Fil\u00f3 back to her habitat in the rainforest<\/a> near the influencer\u2019s house. Aidar was quoted in the news about Fil\u00f3, saying she objected to the influencer bringing Fil\u00f3 into his house, touching her, and treating her like a human. \u201cPeople have to understand that animals have to live the way they were born to live,\u201d she told me, \u201cand not the way people want them to live.\u201d<\/p>\n In Rio de Janeiro, biologist M\u00e1rio Moscatelli, who\u2019s spent decades restoring mangroves in the city\u2019s gorgeous Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, is now speaking on behalf of the lagoon\u2019s capybaras. They showed up about five years ago, likely migrating along rivers. Today, he says, there\u2019s a male and female with six babies at the lagoon, plus another couple and a lone male.<\/p>\n Moscatelli uses government funding for public education programs, fencing, and signs encouraging human-capybara coexistence. \u201cAttention: Capybara\u2014Wild Animal Crossing,\u201d reads one such sign along the bike path circling the lagoon.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the cycle path we have the fast-and-furious people that are riding their bikes or electric bikes,\u201d he says, \u201cso we put up a lot of signs to alert people about the presence of capybaras.\u201d<\/p>\n The fences are to protect capybaras from humans and their unleashed dogs, who will often smell a capybara and attack. \u201cThere were even cases that people intervened, and everybody got bitten,\u201d Moscatelli says\u2014that is, dogs bit capybaras, who bit dogs and humans. Four people were sent to the hospital because of that, including a pregnant woman, he says.<\/p>\n A well-known figure in the news in Rio, Moscatelli calls the capybaras by human names to sensitize humans to them. He usually names the females Margarida, and the males Ricardo (after a joke from an old Brazilian comedy, in which \u201cRicardo\u201d is the guy whom a character\u2019s wife cheats on him with).<\/p>\n Moscatelli tries to humanize the capybaras so that real humans become more humane. He\u2019s been looking out for them since 2023, when, he says, a female capybara was found dead near the lagoon, likely stoned to death by humans. He says three capybara families have been exterminated at the lagoon; he\u2019s found dead capybaras with bloody noses and others with bullet wounds, and he\u2019s seen people encouraging their unleashed dogs to approach capybaras at the lagoon. Capybaras \u201clet you get very close to them, so it\u2019s easy to do harm to them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Though it\u2019s hard to always verify the cause of death, Moscatelli thinks some people may have retaliated after their dogs were injured in canine-capybara fights, while some people from poor communities may have killed capybaras for meat.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a socioeconomic problem in Rio de Janeiro\u2014we have very wealthy people, and we have very destitute people,\u201d Moscatelli says. \u201cAnd we have bad people.\u201d He\u2019s even heard rumors, from supporters of his work, that some restaurants in Rio serve capybara meat to certain customers as a clandestine menu item.<\/p>\n Moscatelli wants the city and state governments to spend more, and to establish a wildlife care center for the lagoon capybaras\u2019 health, monitoring, and population control. They haven\u2019t so far. \u201cCapybaras don\u2019t vote, and they don\u2019t pay taxes,\u201d he observes.<\/p>\n In March, after my interview with Moscatelli, came a new example of cruelty to capybaras. Police in Rio announced the arrest of six men and two teenagers who were reportedly caught on camera<\/a> beating a capybara with stones, sticks, and iron bars in another part of the city. The suspects told police they\u2019d wanted to kill the capybara for its meat; prosecutors have charged them with animal cruelty and illegal hunting. After two months in a wildlife rehab center, the capybara was finally released in a safer, forested area.<\/p>\n S\u00e3o Paulo has also seen cases of capybara mistreatment\u2014like kids throwing rocks, and one instance involving a man who tied a rope around a capybara\u2014according to Marcello Nardi, a veterinarian with the city\u2019s wildlife rehab center, which partners with Projeto CAPA and nursed the zoo\u2019s three rescue capybaras. \u201cSome people call for a rescue because others want to kill the animal,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes you just need to show up and talk to the community, to get them to back off, leave it alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Often, S\u00e3o Paulo capybaras just need rescuing after they\u2019ve trespassed: Sometimes a capybara has made its way into a home or business overnight and needs bailing out. Nardi has picked up capybaras from a supermarket warehouse, a shopping-mall parking lot, and a gas station on a busy avenue. That\u2019s not easy, since capybaras max out at around 155 pounds; sometimes he anesthetizes them for the trip back to the river.<\/p>\n But even people who don\u2019t mean to hurt capybaras can still do harm to them, an unfortunate side effect of them living in such proximity to humans. Despite their internet reputation for being chill, capybaras are among the wild animals that can actually die of stress, a condition called capture myopathy. \u201cEven though capybaras don\u2019t look stressed, they are actually very stressed,\u201d Nardi says\u2014especially if they think they\u2019re going to be prey. Sometimes, concerned humans crowd around an injured capybara, he says, not knowing it\u2019s better to leave them alone and go for help.<\/p>\n After visiting S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s wild capybaras, I wondered if the rodents had made a mistake by moving to the big city. A week later, I was riding a scenic railroad out of Tiradentes, a historic town in Minas Gerais state about 300 miles northeast of S\u00e3o Paulo, when we came upon some country capybaras sunning themselves in a field. \u201cCapivaras!\u201d exclaimed one Brazilian passenger after another, all of whom had passed cows and horses without much reaction. The capybaras, chill as ever, barely acknowledged the train. And they were in no danger from people. Their life looked idyllic. What if the urban capybaras could have this?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They\u2019re Giant. They\u2019re Cuddly-Looking. I Traveled to a City Where They\u2019ve Taken Over\u2014and Learned the Startling Truth About What They\u2019re Facing. <\/p>\n It\u2019s the Great Fear of Our Time. I\u2019m Mathematically Sure It Won\u2019t Happen.![\"One](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4e5be7c0-0fec-4d2b-8b12-c8c0fecb52c3.jpeg\")
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\nPaula Moura<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/8cdd41e1-db33-4b15-be43-be52165ab2f1.jpeg\")
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\nErick Trickey<\/p>\n
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