Scratchings-and-Sniffings

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Good News for Jaguars Posted: 19 May 2010 01:48 PM PDT There's a great video on the NY Times site this week about some good work being done on behalf of Jaguars in Central America and Mexico. We've written several posts about The Northern Jaguar Project and their efforts to protect the Northern most population of Jaguars in Chihuahua, not far from the border with Arizona and New Mexico. This work is along those lines and is being done by an organization known as Panthera. Their mission is protection and habitat preservation for big cats all over the world. Their work in Mexico involves the creation of migration routes for Jaguars. These routes are critically important to the long term survival of these magnificent cats. They need to be able to move between areas with good habitat.   This is especially important for dispersal of young males. As you know, male Jaguars are territorial and young males must move out of the immediate area in which they were born to insure reproductive success.    Global warming also affects Jaguar habitat and will result in increased movement. Being able to move from one area to another to breed also helps create genetic diversity. Besides that, these cats need large areas for successful hunting so these corridors help with lots of Jaguar needs.   The Northern Jaguar project is involved in corridor creation, too. In our part of the world we have areas that are known as Sky Islands. These are isolated mountain ranges that pop up out of the arid lowlands and provide increased moisture, exceptional habitat and much needed biodiversity. Right out my back door is an area known as The Gila. There are almost 750,000 acres of designated wilderness in the Gila and lots more National Forest.    The Gila and the mountains to the South and West provide critical migration corridors for wildlife. Jaguars have made it up from Chihuahua and into South Eastern Arizona and South Western New Mexico by making use of migration corridors. If we ever hope to have Jaguars back in their historical range, which includes the Gila, these corridors will be essential.    There is not much good environmental news in the paper these days,especially in view of the disaster in the Gulf. I'll take what I can get and this is good news for the Jaguar. Kudos to Panthera and the Northern Jaguar Project for their good work.

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