|
World Wildlife Fund
LONDON, U K (Reuters) - The musty jaguar pelts on display at a government office in Buenos Aires are a grim reminder of the big cat's precarious existence in Argentina's northern forests.
The Iguazu waterfalls that border Paraguay and Brazil mark what is now the outer limit of the jaguar's range.
Just 50 of the big cats are estimated to live in the sub-tropical jungle around the famous falls.
Out of sight of the tourist hordes, Argentine scientists have been monitoring one of the nation's last remaining jaguar populations since 2003.
Project Jaguar's aim is to fit the animals with GPS tracking collars in order to observe how they are affected by farming and other activities.
Most years they normally register two or three animals during a month-long tracking campaign, but this time not a single jaguar has been trapped for fitting with a collar so far, team leader Agustin Paviolo told Reuters Television.
"The population risk studies we've conducted in collaboration with the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago indicate that in a medium-term period of between 20 and 30 years, the likelihood of extinction is quite high if we don't take action to reduce the threats to this population," he said.
Argentina's northern forest have been classified as one of the areas where jaguars are least likely to survive, along with parts of Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana and most of its ranges in Central America and Mexico.
The jaguar used to roam up into southern parts of the United States and down to Patagonia, but they now occupy only 40 percent of their historic range.
The World Wildlife Fund estimates that only 15,000 are left in the wild as deforestation deprives them of prey and makes them more vulnerable to hunters.
HUNTING STILL A THREAT
About 18,000 jaguars were killed globally every year for their fur in the 1960s and 1970s and hunting remains a threat to them today despite anti-fur campaigns.
The stuffed jaguar, jaguar-skin rug and jackets on display at the government's Environment and Sustainable Development office were seized by officials in recent years.
Red Yaguarete (Jaguar Network), a voluntary group that works to get hunters prosecuted, was involved in the first two cases in Argentina in which people were fined for selling jaguar skins last year.
"People used to show us the bodies and the skulls when we visited different areas," said Nicolas Lodeiro Ocampo, president of the group. "That hardly ever happens now because people are more aware of the penalties."
The group says there is increasing evidence that foreigners are hunting the animals for sport, though most animals are killed by farmers who lose livestock to the jaguars.
But despite some progress to crack down on poaching, hunters are rarely convicted by over-stretched courts.
"(If a) judge has 5,000 or 6,000 cases to handle, among them kidnappings or drug-trafficking, that affects ... the interest they could have in environmental issues like jaguars," said Marcelo Silva Croome, an official at the government's National Wildlife Directorate.
In Iguazu, the Project Jaguar team says the forest needs the jaguar as much as the jaguar needs the forest.
"In areas where large predators are disappearing ... the ecosystem starts to lose equilibrium," Paviolo said. "For the jungle to remain as it is, we need to have these predators."
Copyright 2013 Reuters
(Copyright
Terms)
Updated 587 days ago Article ID# 1253164
World Wildlife Fund
View
Charity Profile
Visit Website
|
|
|
|
Wildfires rage in Spain
|
|
267 days ago From Castanet.net
|
|
KELOWNA, CANADA - Diana Colomina of the Spanish branch of the World Wildlife Fund said experts has estimated it would take the 800 hectares of Garajonay that had burned at least 150 years to recover. Very low rainfall and searing summer temperatures have made much of ...
|
|
|
|
|
Cambodia wildlife endangered by land concessions
|
|
271 days ago From Deutsche Welle
|
|
BONN, GERMANY - Mark Wright of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Cambodia told DW that the intact Eastern Plains which - which is regarded as an optimal place for the recovery of the country's tiger and elephant populations - is under threat from national and interna ...
|
|
|
|
|
Supreme Court Castigates Government for Poor Tiger Conservation Efforts
|
|
271 days ago From New York Times
|
|
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - A 2010 tiger census, conducted by the World Wildlife Fund in India and other agencies, reported an increase in the country's overall tiger population since 2007. But the organization also found an =93an alarming decline in tiger occupancy from 36 ...
|
|
|
|
|
Coral reefs dying due to high temperatures
|
|
272 days ago From Adnkronos International English
|
|
ROME, ITALY - (AKI) - Riing sea temperature are killing Italy's coral reefs, according to a study by the World Wildlife Fund. The reefs are whitening and dying due to the death of their anatomical parts. They fade from firey red, sunny orange and bright green ...
|
|
|
|
|
SA & Vietnam to stop rhino poaching
|
|
273 days ago From Eyewitness News
|
|
RIVONIA, SOUTH AFRICA - CAPE TOWN/JOHANNESBURG - The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Black Rhino Expansion Project it hoped a memorandum of understanding between South Africa and Vietnam could help stop rhino poaching. The two countries are on the verge of signing a ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| <<
Return To
Animal
News |
|
|
