Dennis+Navarrete,+Jaguar

Jaguar (Yaguara)

Jaguars are only found in the Western Hemisphere, and have already lost two thirds of their habitat in Mexico and Central America. As its rainforest dwindles and threats like man-made habitat loss and fragmentation, agriculture, urbanization and illegal hunting increase, the jaguars’ numbers are going down. As of today only an estimated 15,000 jaguars remain in the wild, 6,000 of which live in North and Central America.
 * //Location and Natural Habitat// **

The Jaguar lives in the entire Western Hemisphere, only the rainforests of Mexico and Guatemala are large enough to maintain a jaguar population larger than 400 individuals. We have also discovered interesting characteristics of the jaguar’s use of this habitat, namely that within each individual’s home-range, jaguars live and forage in a small sub-area of this range for periods of 7-10 days and then move on to another small area with an abundance of new prey. This continuous movement permits the hunter to take advantage of the entire home range without decreasing the abundance of prey populations.
 * // Niche //**



Population- During the peak of its decline in the sixties and seventies, around 18,000 jaguars were killed every year for there much sought after coat. Due to environmental pressure the fashion for animal furs has declined, but the jaguar is still hunted. Today the major threat comes from deforestation which is drastically affecting the jaguars prey base as well as fragmenting the cats population into more isolated pockets. It is estimated that there are now only around 15,000 jaguars left in the wild and conservation is centring on the establishment of protected ‘National Park’ areas which may serve to reduce the decline of the jaguars natural habitat. In Belize, the government, aided by the WWF, have set aside 150 square miles of rain forest in the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Preserve, which currently provides a protected environment for around 200 jaguars, the largest concentration of the wild cats species in the world. The WWF are also providing aid to protect some of the remaining rain forests areas of South America, which provide a refuge for the majority of the remaining jaguar population.

Conservation Efforts- Discovering that Jaguar numbers are increasing on the Programme for Belize lands was the highlight of a speech given by Edilberto Romero, Executive Director of Programme for Belize (PfB), whilst visiting the UK last week. At a small gathering of long-term supporters of PfB, Mr Romero gave encouraging facts and figures demonstrating that Jaguar numbers really are on the up, in PfB's protected forests.

Work Cited- World Land Trust, Blyth House, Bridge Street, Halesworth, Suffolk, IP19 8AB, United Kingdom Limited company registered in England & Wales No. 2552942. Retrived 10-15-2009 [] William Miller, Robbie Peter, Jennifer Butler, Derrick Gormley, and Thomas MacLean are the creators of this page. Retrived 10-15-2009. []