Download Jaguar - Endangered Species Coalition

Endangered Species Coalition 2016 Top 10 Report Nominating Form
General Information
Deadline: July 29, 2016
Nominating Organizations: Please use this Column to Provide the Requested
Information
Northern Jaguar Project, www.northernjaguarproject.org
1
Organization & Web address
2
Contact name for species info
Diana Hadley
3
Address
2114 W Grant Rd Ste 121, Tucson, AZ 85745
4
Email & phone
[email protected], (520) 623-9653 x.5
5
Communications staff contact name
Diana Hadley
6
Email & phone
[email protected], (520) 623-9653 x.5
General Species Information
7
Common name, genus, and species
Jaguar, Panthera onca
8
Geographic range
Southwestern U.S. to South America
9
Conservation status
Near threatened (IUCN), Endangered in U.S. and Mexico
10
Remaining population size
Estimated 80-120 northern Mexican population, 3800-4000 in Mexico, 10,000-15,000
rangewide
Report Questions
11
Can you provide high-resolution photos?
Yes
12
If your species is selected, will you use the
report to advocate for the species?
Yes
13
5 free reports provided; additional copies =
$2.60/each. If you’d like additional copies,
how many (bulk orders may be cheaper)?
N/A
Public Engagement Questions (Please explain why the species is interesting, why it matters, why decision-makers + the public should
care.)0
14 Provide background information, including
One of the so-called roaring cats, the jaguar is the largest cat native to North America
interesting facts, for the species profile.
and the third largest cat in the world. The name jaguar likely comes from the word
yaguareté, translated as “true, fierce beast.” The species has long been esteemed for
its unequivocal power and striking beauty, regarded as a symbol of wildness, and
revered as a source of wisdom in Mesoamerican religions, mythologies, and art. The
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies
Maya believed the jaguar, God of the Underworld, helped the sun travel under the
Earth at night, ensuring it would rise each morning. The Olmecs understood jaguars to
be divine gods possessing the ability to jump-start earthquakes. Worshiped by the
Aztecs, jaguars were positioned as guardians of their sacred temples.
The jaguar is commonly identified by its distinctive spotted coat, with dark rosette
markings unique to each individual. With stocky, muscular bodies and thick chests,
large and broad heads, relatively compact limbs, large paws, and short tails, jaguars
measure five to eight feet from nose to tail and often appear larger than they actually
are. Weighing between 80 and 120 pounds, the northern jaguar in the U.S.-Mexico
borderlands is noticeably smaller than its South American relatives.
Unlike most cats, which kill by grabbing the throat and suffocating their prey, the
jaguar kills by piercing its prey’s skull or neck with one swift bite – demonstrating the
strength of its powerful jaws. As strong climbers and excellent swimmers, jaguars are
perfectly adapted to capture deer, javelina, desert bighorn sheep, birds, turtles,
alligators, snakes, and fish.
Like many large, solitary predators, jaguars can wander and cover an immense
territory. While these elusive cats once roamed throughout the southern U.S., only five
individuals are known to have occupied territories in Arizona and New Mexico since the
mid-1990s.
15
What is your organization’s most important
lead message for the public about this
species’ decline to be included in the report?
The jaguar has become an emblem of species conservation in the U.S.-Mexico
Borderland area. Since 2011, a single male jaguar, given the name “El Jefe,” has
resided in the mountains of southern Arizona. The only jaguar known to be living in the
U.S., he is thought to have traveled north from an area 125 miles south of the U.S.Mexico border where the world’s northernmost breeding jaguar population is estimated
to include 80-120 individuals. As El Jefe makes headlines and gains media attention in
the U.S., many people ask where he came from and how he will find a mate.
Meanwhile, his extended jaguar family in Sonora continues to struggle for survival
across a broad region where poisoning and poaching are the foremost threats. Jaguars
in this area have been cornered, killed, isolated, and left with little protection for
decades. Today, the unprecedented, prolonged drought challenges every livestock
raiser in this region, and has led to increased losses of range cattle. Jaguars and other
felines are often blamed for cattle deaths that result occasionally from depredations but
primarily from a lack of forage and water. We know that curtailing the hunting/poisoning
that results from these mistaken assumptions is one of the most time-sensitive needs
for jaguar recovery.
16
Is your NGO saving the species? If yes,
how?
The Northern Jaguar Project’s highest priorities are to protect this population from
illegal poaching, improve conservation knowledge and activities within the local
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies
ranching community, and to provide a wildlife sanctuary that is of adequate size and
location for northern jaguars to reproduce.
The 55,000-acre Northern Jaguar Reserve’s remote, rugged, and altogether dramatic
landscape is one of the last truly wild refuges for the northern jaguar and supports the
highest number of jaguar sightings in recent years, including females and their cubs –
the essential link to a continuing population and the source of any jaguars that may
move north across the international border.
The Northern Jaguar Reserve was established by the Northern Jaguar Project and
our Mexican co-manager Naturalia, and is the centerpiece of our ongoing work to
strengthen conservation activities in the U.S.-Mexico border region and guarantee a
protected place for jaguars to roam. The reserve further acts as a hub for conservation
outreach to the surrounding community.
Through our Viviendo con Felinos project, we have made a long-term commitment to
build local tolerance for jaguars and other wildlife. Viviendo con Felinos makes clear
connections between habitat conservation, scientific monitoring, community education,
and improved predator-landowner relations. We continue to foster relationships with a
widening base of ranchers by using economic incentives to reward the presence of
living wildlife – slowly transforming a community once hostile toward jaguars to one
actively engaged in conservation.
Our motion-triggered cameras have photographed more than 50 individual jaguars on
the reserve and on the 11 Viviendo con Felinos ranches in the last decade. In July
2016, we retrieved photographs of a female jaguar together with her five-month-old
cub. Photos of cubs are exceedingly rare, as during their first year they do not move
out of the den frequently. Thus cub photos provide strong evidence of the success of
local conservation efforts to protect, safeguard, and strengthen the northern jaguar
population.
17
How can individuals help? Please be
specific.
Individuals can be of great assistance in supporting the conservation work of the
nonprofit Northern Jaguar Project in its efforts to expand the area of protection
provided by the Northern Jaguar Reserve and to safeguard the source population for
jaguars returning to former habitat in the U.S. Our organizational goal is to triple the
reserve size and vastly increase the number of conservation ranches enrolled in the
Viviendo con Felinos program. Opportunities exist for short- and long-term internships
with reserve biologists, and for assistance to teachers in educational programs, such
as our “Ecology Weeks” and “Eco-Camps” conducted in rural communities, as well as
assistance to visiting teachers who give programs in rural schools on regional
biodiversity. Educational programs should be expanded throughout the border region
to increase respect for local biodiversity including the value of jaguars and other
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies
predators in local ecosystems. Support and participation in multi-level environmental
education on both sides of the border will help develop a new generation of
ecologically aware rural residents and predator-tolerant conservation ranchers.
18
What action should the new administration
take to save the species? How can they
accomplish this action?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should develop a recovery plan that includes target
population numbers and distribution in the U.S. beyond critical habitat areas. The new
administration should defend critical habitat from proposals such as the proposed
Rosemont Mine (and deny permits from that mine that are still outstanding). The U.S.
Department of Homeland Security should not build any additional solid wall
infrastructure along the U.S.-Mexico border, and should dismantle portions of the
existing border wall at key wildlife migration points thereby restoring connectivity
between U.S. habitat and the source population in Sonora. Solid metal border wall can
be replaced with the more wildlife friendly vehicle barrier (“Normandy barrier”) at
known wildlife corridor locations. More funding can be invested in researching specific
wildlife corridors and connectivity to the breeding jaguar population in Sonora.
International support from a variety of U.S. governmental agencies for the construction
of wildlife underpasses and overpasses on Mexico’s Route 2, the heavily used federal
highway truck route that parallels the international border only a few miles south of the
border wall in Arizona and New Mexico, would prevent a large number of wildlife roadkills and provide safe corridor connectivity for jaguars and other species.
Criteria-specific Questions – Please feel free to answer N/A or “see above/below” as appropriate. Please cite scientific studies.
19
Detail the ecological importance of the
species. Does it play a critical function in its
ecosystem, e.g., as a foundational species or
keystone species? How does the ecosystem
depend on this species (e.g., keystone
predator, keystone pollinator, ecological
engineer, refugia provider, etc.)?
As the apex predator and the keystone species throughout it’s remaining habitat, the
jaguar plays a crucial role in maintaining healthy ecosystem function and in preventing
imbalance in the number and relationship of species under it’s umbrella of protection.
Since jaguars are able to adapt to a wide variety of habitats (including tropical, desert,
thornscrub, and high elevation locations) and since they occupy large home ranges,
their recovery and expansion as a species will provide conservation benefits to
multiple additional species in many diverse and distant areas. The ecological services
they provide should be considered particularly important for the border region.
20
Detail information on any social or economic
benefits the species provides—e.g., its value
for clean water, recreation, medicine,
scientific research, etc.—if any. (Optional)
Recent economic studies indicate that ecotourism is the single most important
economic driver for southern Arizona and New Mexico. Ecotourism created the
largest benefits to depressed rural areas throughout the border region. The
charismatic nature of the jaguar provides a flagship species to expand and attract
tourism by individuals and groups valued as generous, thoughtful, clean and
considerate visitors.
21
Can the species be an ambassador for its
habitat or taxonomic group? If yes, detail.
The jaguar as a beautiful, powerful, charismatic species is an ideal ambassador for its
taxonomic group and has been esteemed and revered throughout the Americas for
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies
centuries by all cultures where it was present. The extent of the jaguar’s most recent
ambassadorial appeal can be measured by the response in 1996 to the first photos of
a live wild jaguar taken in the century. Rancher and professional lion hunter Warner
Glenn was so awed by his unexpected encounter in southern Arizona with a wild
jaguar that he wrote a book detailing the experience. The Malpai Borderlands Group,
a local ranch organization of which Glenn was a member, promptly created a fund to
provide ranchers with compensation for any proven jaguar depredations. In 2009, the
death of another Arizona jaguar, “Macho B,” created international news and was
widely greeted with great distress.
Judge’s Score for Importance of Species:
22
Describe the specific threat(s) to the species.
What are the greatest impacts?
23
Detail the current and projected decline of
the species.
24
If not described above, detail the status of
the species’ habitat(s). What are the threats,
if any? Is there adequate connectivity?
Jaguars in Sonora continue to face severe threats, despite their listing as a legally
protected endangered species in Mexico. Threats include illegal poaching, the
indiscriminate effects of poison use on widespread non-target species, the failure of
Mexican agencies to enforce laws or prosecute perpetrators, shifting weather patterns
and invasive species, potential mining claims, the volatility of the Mexican peso and its
impacts on Mexico’s economy, and impacts from the ongoing drought on wildlife and
livestock that result in increased depredations and subsequent expanded hostilities
from livestock raisers.
The U.S.-Mexico border wall threatens jaguar recovery in the U.S. In southern
Arizona, the Rosemont Mine, a proposed open pit copper mine located within
designated critical habitat that is territory for the only known jaguar north of the border
at this time, threatens to compromise chances for recovery in the U.S.
Jaguar range throughout the Americas has been reduced by at least fifty percent.
CenJaguar, the project to create a national census of jaguars in Mexico, estimates
that only 3800 to 4000 jaguars remain in the country, with at least half of the
population on the distant Yucatan peninsula. Jaguars are most threatened at the
northern limit of their range near the U.S. border, thus reducing the possibility of
reestablishing a viable population in the U.S. and making preservation and expansion
of the northern Mexican population even more important.
Jaguars are threatened by habitat fragmentation throughout Mexico and the U.S., and
connectivity is an urgent need for conservation of the species. Jaguars have large
home ranges and must be able to disperse long distances in order to maintain
biological balance and genetic diversity in the wild. In some areas, connectivity
between jaguars in Sonora and designated critical habitat in the U.S. has already been
compromised by border security infrastructure (border wall). Increased human
population and road construction are creating additional threats to the south and the
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies
east of the current northernmost jaguar population. The present political administration
in Mexico is favorable to extractive industries and especially to mining interests and has
reduced the size and scope of environmental agencies throughout the country, with the
state of Sonora experiencing the largest reductions in personnel of environmental
agencies.
25
Describe the timing of the species’ threat(s).
Is it a current, eminent, or future threat?
All of the threats listed above are current threats.
26
Indicate if there is an associated political
threat, e.g., does an industry group or
member of Congress threaten this species?
Agricultural interests filed suit against the designation of critical habitat for jaguars in
New Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recovery planning process follows
Arizona Game and Fish Department’s lead in discounting U.S. habitats.
Judge’s Score for Severity and Extent of
Threat:
Judge’s Final Score
Please submit to [email protected] by July 29, 2016, and thank you for participating in the 2016 Top 10 Report.
Please cite any substantiating scientific studies