Animals / With increasing efforts to preserve the jaguar, more details are revealed about the secretive animal * Speed is actually not its strong point
Natalie Angier New York Times
jaguar. No one has yet managed to photograph a female jaguar with her cubs in the wild. Photo: New York Times
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Dr. Eduardo Carrillo was lucky enough to see jaguars in the wild at least twenty times. He saw them sneaking through the thick forest, their mates glinting in the trees. He saw them hunting giant sea turtles on the beach, napping on cliffs, swimming across rivers and passing the time. Lazily, leaning on the roots of a huge fig tree.
Carrillo may have spotted quite a few jaguars, but they spotted him dozens and maybe hundreds of times. It is a large animal - it is almost two meters long and weighs almost 150 kilograms - but even compared to animals that are known to be shy, it is extremely difficult to see it in the wild.
According to Carrillo, a Costa Rican biologist who works for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, "I can stand next to a jaguar—I know that because I pick up signals from the transmitter attached to its collar. But most of the time I won't see it."
Carrillo's students are also well aware of the wild cat's elusiveness. One of them, Roberto Salon, embarrassedly admitted that after 18 months of research on the jaguar he still had not seen the animal in the wild.
Due to its secretive behavior, the jaguar is one of the least studied animals among the "big cats". But recently, Dr. Carrillo and his colleagues at the Wildlife Conservation Society, along with several conservation organizations in Latin America, managed to discover more details about the predator and they are determined to compile its portrait and promote it to the first rank of the animals that effort is made to preserve.
One sign of progress in this spirit is an agreement that Dr. Carrillo and the Wildlife Conservation Society are expected to sign these days with the government of Panama. The agreement will confirm the government's commitment to protect the wild areas in southern Panama, through which jaguars from Central America can migrate to the south of the continent and jaguars from South America can migrate to the center
However, despite the progress of research and conservation efforts, "no one has yet succeeded in photographing a female jaguar with her cubs in the wild," said Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, the scientific director of the Wildlife Conservation Society and head of the society's jaguar research program. "You can see the mother. You can see signs of the presence of the cubs. But you can't see the puppies themselves."
The jaguar, its fans claim, is an animal meant to star in posters. It belongs to the genus Panthera, which includes lions, tigers and tigers. What differentiates the big cats from similar animals is that their tongue bone has undergone a change that allows them to roar. The cheetah cannot roar, as can the schooner (lynx), the serval, the ocelot and the puma. The jaguar can, and is the only animal that does so in the Western Hemisphere.
The jaguar's habitat extends from northern Argentina to the Sonoran region of Mexico, not far from the border with the United States. Jaguars rarely come to Arizona and New Mexico, but most prefer the shade of the tropical rain forests. The jaguars are the top predators in their habitat, and because of this can testify to the state of the wild life in these areas. If the jaguar population is thriving, chances are the creatures below it in the local food chain are also thriving. But if the jaguars start coming out of their preferred forest cover and attacking farm animals in populated areas, it is a sign that something is not right in the forests.
This year, for example, at least four jaguars got out of Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica and were shot to death by farmers who feared for the safety of their sheep and cattle. Eventually it became clear that the jaguars were forced to find food outside of their normal habitat because poachers invaded Corcovado Park and hunted peccaries, large wild boar-like animals that both humans and jaguars love to taste. In recent weeks, guards patrolled around the park, preventing trespassers from entering, seeing that the peccaries remained inside the park and protecting the lives of the jaguars.
Dr. Carrillo and his colleagues are now completing a large census of the jaguars living in Corcovado. To do this, they are using 32 cameras, placed along known jaguar tracks over about XNUMX square kilometers. The cameras are automatically activated by heat and movement - indicating that a mammal is passing by - and they have all been filming continuously since August and have produced thousands of images of many animals, including jaguars.
The different jaguars can be distinguished due to the unique configuration of each of them. In early spring, the cameras caught a black jaguar, the first ever found in Corcovado.
Dr. Carrillo is reluctant to estimate the expected results of the census, but he said that he expects Corcovado and its surroundings to have between 50 and 100 jaguars - a reasonable density for a predator that needs a large living space.
Dr. Rabinowitz said that these numbers apply to primitive areas, where there has been no significant development. However, in other areas, jaguars are losing their habitat due to logging and hunting.
In addition to the surveys carried out in Latin America, the biologists are trying to find out if the jaguars cross the Darien Pass, along the border between Panama and Colombia. This finding will make it possible to know if the jaguar populations in Central and South America are refreshing their gene reserves.
Because countries with a rich diversity of big cats are often cash-poor, jaguar researchers are grateful for the generosity of the company that makes the car that bears the animal's name. A few years ago, after Michael Dale, president of Jaguar, helped revive the company, he experienced a spiritual epiphany that led him to donate a million dollars to Jaguar research. "He told us, 'What's the point of the car manufacturer's success, if the animal it's named after goes extinct?'" Dr. Rabinovitch recalled.
But does the company boast a name that has justification? This is an open topic for discussion. As researchers discover, jaguars are neither fast nor graceful. "They remind me of fire hydrants," Rabinovitch said. "They are extremely solid and very close to the ground."
Jaguars are indeed the epitome of power. They are smaller than the other big cats, but have a relatively large head and an extremely strong jaw, which allows them to break bones. Their feet are wide and their claws are menacing.
The jaguar hunts stealthily and kills its prey by leaping on the animal's back and crushing its neck. In one of the South American languages, the meaning of the name jaguar is "the wild animal that can kill its prey with one swipe". If the prey manages to escape, the cases where the jaguar bothers to chase it are rare.
Despite its wild appearance, the jaguar does not harm humans. Of all the animals belonging to the panthera genus, the jaguar has the least chance of attacking a human without prior provocation. Unlike tigers, lions and even puma, there has never been a recorded case of a man-eating jaguar.
No one knows why the jaguar does not like the taste of humans. However, this is such a prominent feature that many South American residents describe the jaguar as a coward.
Jaguars also go out of their way to avoid other jaguars. They have an extreme tendency to isolate themselves and do everything possible to mark their territory. Their roar, which can be heard from afar, helps them keep intruders from entering their territory.
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