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Once linked, members of different jaguar populations could, in theory, roam safely between areas, breed with one another, maintain genetic diversity—and improve their survival odds. It stems from an unexpected discovery. But when the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity in Frederick, Maryland, part of the National Institutes of Health, analyzed jaguar DNA from blood and tissue samples collected throughout the Americas, researchers determined that no jaguar group had split off into a true subspecies.
Panthera has identified potential jaguar corridors covering nearly a million square miles, spanning 18 nations and two continents. So far, Mexico, Central America and Colombia have signed on to the initiative. Negotiating agreements with the rest of South America is next. Creating this jaguar genetic highway will be easier in some places than others.
From the Amazon north, the continent is an emerald matrix of jaguar habitats that can be easily linked. But parts of Central America are utterly deforested. A solitary animal that leaves its birthplace in adolescence to establish its own territory, a jaguar requires up to square miles with sufficient prey to survive.
But jaguars can move through any landscape that offers enough fresh water and some cover—forests, of course, but also ranches, plantations, citrus groves and village gardens. They travel mostly at night.
The ranches straddle two preserves, making them an important link in the corridor chain and together creating 1, square miles of protected habitat. On an adjacent property, Holyfield might have been shot on sight as a potential cattle-killer. These ranches are expected to be more successful than others by using modern husbandry and veterinary techniques, such as vaccinating cattle herds. Because disease and malnutrition are among the leading killers of cattle in this region, preventing those problems more than makes up for the occasional animal felled by a jaguar. As a child growing up near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Kaplan read an article about tigers written by Schaller, then of the New York Zoological Society, which inspired his interest in cat conservation.
Kaplan went on to track bobcats near his home, and he dreamed of becoming a cat biologist. Instead, he got a PhD in history from Oxford University and became an entrepreneur, earning a fortune in gold, silver, platinum and natural gas. Fortified by a windfall from a silver-mine investment, Kaplan took a step down that path in by contacting Rabinowitz. The two men bonded over their desire to save big cats, although it was an unlikely mission for both of them.
It was the end of the dry season, the best time of year to see jaguars. Their waters would rise by up to 15 feet, backing up like a plugged bathtub and inundating 80 percent of the Pantanal flood plain. Only a few areas of high ground would remain above water. Bulldog-size rodents called capybara watched us, motionless, from the shallows. A lone howler monkey lay in a tree, back legs swinging in the breeze. Caiman submerged as we passed. A six-foot anaconda coiled under a tree. Innumerable birds took flight as we floated by: Jabiru storks with nine-foot wingspans glided overhead.
With abundant prey, the cats here grow to be the largest in all of jaguardom. One male collared in weighed pounds, about three times more than an average Central American jaguar. The Pantanal ecosystem nurtures perhaps the highest density of jaguars anywhere.
Pairs separate after mating, and females provide all parenting. It takes five men to heft the cat onto a scale: That way, 51 Jaguar Conservation Units were determined in 36 geographic regions as priority areas for jaguar conservation including: Owston's palm civet C. The major risks to the jaguar include deforestation across its habitat, increasing competition for food with human beings, especially in dry and unproductive habitat, [1] [85] poaching , hurricanes in northern parts of its range, and the behavior of ranchers who will often kill the cat where it preys on livestock. The inclusion of the United States in the list is based on occasional sightings in the southwest, particularly in Arizona , [40] New Mexico and Texas.
Our boatman veered off into a small creek, navigating low, coffee-colored waters choked with water hyacinth. Fish jumped, glinting, in our wake. A stray piranha landed in the boat, flopping at our feet. We rounded an oxbow and startled a tapir that swam wild-eyed for shore, holding its prehensile, elephantine trunk in the air. On a sandy beach we spied jaguar tracks that led to a fresh kill.
The boatman pulled close. A few scraps remained of a six-foot caiman carcass. Jaguars have the most powerful jaws of any cat, strong enough to crack sea turtle shells. Jaguars rarely kill people, although they have done so, usually when cornered in a hunt. A few nights later, we witnessed an adult jaguar silently stalking something in the shallows. It dived, and when it surfaced, a four-foot caiman dangled from its mouth. Much remains to be learned about jaguar behavior. The Pantanal has been the scene of jaguar-cattle conflict ever since cows were introduced by the early 18th century.
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