Jaguar

What do you know about lions? While you may have seen videos of these iconic big cats wandering the plains of Africa, there’s a lot to learn about the world’s second biggest cat. 

It’s time for another Wild Cats 101 lesson! Panthera has written a few blogs on black cats before but this spooky season, we’re bringing you more information on melanism!

“The pumas give you opportunities and even open doors.” — Sandra Rodríguez, Costa Rican farmer 

For many farmers living in Costa Rica, the threat of wildlife conflict is a daily reality. Frequently, hungry wild cats who have experienced ecosystem depletion and fragmentation as a result of human activity hunt livestock to avoid starvation. However, this has resulted in further escalating an already tense situation that oftentimes results in retaliatory killings against the hungry cats.  

In this blog, Panthera Belize Director Dr. Bart Harmsen illustrates the life of F11-9, a female jaguar in the Cockscomb Basin, a critical sanctuary for jaguars in Belize. Read on to discover her contributions to jaguar research as she nears her final days.

An ambitious partnership to reverse nature loss, mitigate climate change, build prosperity for people, and secure a brighter future

Between the 1960s and 1970s, jaguars were heavily hunted, with as many as 18,000 killed every year to feed the trade in their skins. In 1975, the trade in jaguar hides was halted thanks to CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), and populations began to stabilize.

A few months ago, we brought you the story of jaguars eating a dolphin in Jeannette Kawas National Park, Honduras. Now, Panthera and our Mesoamerica Regional Director, Dr. Roberto Salom-Pérez, are bringing you another story of Central America’s jaguars feasting on a strange sea creature — a sea turtle. 

In this Field Notes blog, Dr. Allison Devlin, Deputy Director of our Jaguar Program, discusses recent findings which reveal that male jaguars sometimes form coalitions. Read about the implications of this study below, and see our Press Release for more. 

The Month of the Jaguar prowls on. In the third blog of this series, we migrate north from Colombia and Brazil up the Jaguar Corridor to Belize. Learn from Panthera Belize’s Chia-Yu Chang about the exciting programs we’re leading there in honor of this important month. See the first and second blog of this series. 

Mes del Jaguar, the Month of the Jaguar, is coming to a close. In this second blog highlighting this important month, Panthera Researcher Diana Stasiukynas guides us through recent research discussing “hide and flirt” tactics that female jaguars employ in order to increase the likelihood of their cubs’ survival.