"Both professional capybara hide hunters "carpincheros" and subsistence hunters, who frequently hunt along the forest rivers, may use dogs to drive capybara to shore or into the water where they can be shot or harpooned. Capybara are also hunted at night with lanterns on rivers from canoes or they may be caught in pitfalls dug along their characteristic pathways. Often, capybara killed on the shore fall into the water, but they float to the surface after 20 minutes or so because of the fermentation gases produced in the digestive tract.
Capybara are hunted commercially in the llanos of Colombia and Venezuela during the dry season (January to March) on the open savannah, where they can be located, rounded up and driven by mounted hunters to a pre-arranged spot where helpers then surround the herd and slaughter the adults with clubs. In some spots they may slaughter as many as 200 animals a day. The animals are either gutted in the field or transported to a camp or slaughterhouse."