Jaguars Burned by Deforestation

Imagine spotting a jaguar — the third-largest cat — in the United States. Circular spots standing out against their tan fur.  A black-tipped tail flicking left and right as the cat prowls. Eyes glowing in the dark. 

In March 2021, Ganesh Marin, a student at the University of Arizona, caught a jaguar on camera in Mexico, just two miles south of Arizona. Marin named this spotted cat “El Bonito” or “The Beautiful.” Earlier in 2011, an outdoorsman and his ten-year-old daughter found another jaguar that their dog chased up a tree. This jaguar, called “El Jefe” or “The Boss,” roamed southern Arizona for five years until mysteriously disappearing. Conservationists believe that El Bonito and El Jefe traveled 130 miles north from a preserve in Mexico that breeds jaguars. 

Jaguars used to roam parts of Arizona, California, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas. But poachers hunted jaguars for their spotted pelts, and ranchers killed jaguars to protect their cows and livestock. Until these recent sightings, the last jaguar that lived in the United States was killed by hunters in 1963. 

Phenomenal Felines

Jaguars are the only big cats — including lions, tigers, leopards, and cheetahs — that live in the Americas. They are not picky eaters, feasting on just about any prey. A jaguar has an ultra-strong bite that can break through tough crocodile skin, animal bones, and turtle shells.  

Jaguars are apex predators, or the animals at the top of the food chain. As apex predators, jaguars keep the numbers of other animals balanced. For example, jaguars eat tasty armadillos. Yum! Without the jaguar, the number of armadillos would skyrocket. Armadillos eat earthworms, so with more armadillos, there would be fewer earthworms. That might not sound so bad, but earthworms maintain the soil, allowing plants to grow and flourish. No jaguars, no earthworms. No earthworms, no plants. Jaguars keep the food chain in check.

Because jaguars eat all kinds of prey, they inhabit diverse habitats from tropical rainforests, swamps, river valleys, grasslands, to deserts. In the past, jaguars lived from the southwestern United States to northern Argentina. Today, jaguars inhabit half of this territory and are found mainly in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

Some conservationists estimate that there are about 64,000 wild jaguars left in South and Central America, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Jaguars are listed as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act. Jaguars may be at high risk for extinction in the future. These big cats are already extinct in two countries—El Salvador and Uruguay.

Deforestation Hurts Jaguars

A primary threat to jaguars is the destruction of their habitat. As the human population grows, people move into the jaguar’s territory. People remove forest trees to build towns, roads, and farms for food production. This purposeful burning or cutting down of trees is called deforestation. Over the last five years, deforestation has been on the rise in the Amazon rainforests of Brazil and Bolivia. In 2019, farmers in Brazil burned seven million acres of the Amazon rainforest to clear space for cattle farming and soybean fields. That would be like slashing and burning the whole state of Maryland.

South of the Amazon rainforest, you will find Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands and home to the second-largest jaguar population. The Pantanal is on fire. Over 3,000 wildfires burned in 2020 and destroyed more than 2 million acres of the Pantanal, reports the BBC. The fires started when farmers burned forest to create space for cattle ranches, but the fires spread uncontrollably due to drought.

Deforestation destroys the land that jaguars hunt. A jaguar requires up to 100 square miles of land to hunt, prey, and mate, according to the Smithsonian. With less land to roam and fewer wild prey for jaguars, these predators hunt livestock. To protect their livestock, ranchers and farmers kill jaguars that are a threat.

In addition, the destruction of habitat has resulted in population fragmentation. Population fragmentation happens when groups of jaguars are separated from each other and cannot mate. Male jaguars must travel farther distances, sometimes hundreds and hundreds of miles, to find female mates. As a result, reproducing babies is far more challenging for jaguars. 

Conservationists are working to create a “jaguar corridor,” or a passageway for jaguars across 18 Latin American countries. This corridor connects jaguars separated due to habitat destruction and allows jaguars safe passage as they hunt and seek mates.