Conservationists and Others Team Up to Save Mexico's Jaguar Kent Paterson - Frontera NorteSur
go to original October 26, 2015

In twists and turns, efforts are mounting to protect the Americas’ biggest wild cat. A Mexican initiative, the National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation, unites non-governmental and governmental organizations in a new and “ambitious” program aimed at saving an emblematic creature, says Dr. Gerardo Ceballos, an Alliance member and coordinator of the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Ecology Institute.

The campaign’s centerpiece is an Alliance proposal for two long biological corridors dedicated to jaguar conservation. Contouring jaguar habitats of about 10 million acres, the first corridor is envisioned to run between the northeastern state of Tamaulipas and the Yucatan Peninsula in southeastern Mexico; the second one would extend from Sonora to Chiapas on the western side of the country.

“We think we will have a strong impact on jaguar conservation,” Ceballos says.

Accordingly, the Mexican Senate is reviewing an Alliance proposal to classify the biological corridors as a type of natural protected area, the biologist said.

In addition to the national university’s Ecology Institute, members of the Alliance include the World Wildlife Fund-Telcel, and the federal government’s National Commission of Protected Areas.

According to Ceballos, Mexico’s jaguar population plunged from an estimated 20,000 animals at the beginning of the 20th century to 4,000 calculated during a 2009-2011 census. An updated Mexican jaguar census is planned for 2016, while a hemispheric one is in the works for 2017, he says.

Ceballos adds that a Latin American symposium devoted to the creature of legend and lore will held in Mexico City next May.

Located in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatan Peninsula, near Cancun, the private El Eden Ecology Reserve supports the Alliance’s mission.

Read the rest at MexiData.info

Photo: Center for Biological Diversity

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