What is it? The Jaguar, largest cat in America. Where might you find it? In jungles, swamps, forests, desert, and scrub lands of central and South America. Unlike most cats, this one is at home not only on the ground or in the trees but even in the water.
Try to picture yourself standing next to a full-grown male Jaguar. It may be up to 2 meters long, not including its tail, and weigh 120 kilograms or more. Being a solitary creature, the Jaguar meets with other of its species only to mate. A male Jaguar is ready for this by the age of 3 or 4, while the female may have her first litter by the age of 2. Her litter of usually 2 cubs is born after developing in the womb for 3 to 4 months. Some Jaguars are known to live more than 20 years in captivity.
Regarding the mystery and elusiveness of these large cats, one biologist noted that: “Jaguars are so hard to find! You can be standing next to one and you still may never see it”. The cats tawny golden coat splashed with black rosettes, which enclose smaller spots, helps it to hide and then disappear into the shadows without being seen.
A LONE, SILENT KILLER
An experienced hunter, the Jaguar feeds on about 85 species of animals, including tapirs, deer, and monkeys. Because it is at home in the water, the Jaguar also catches fish and turtles with ease. Observers saw a Jaguar kill a full-grown horse, drag it some 80 meters on dry land, and then pull it across a river.
This clever cat often waits for its prey while perched silently in a tree. As an unsuspecting herd of peccaries-fast, pig-like creatures pass below, the Jaguar pounces. With one powerful bite, it kills one and quickly springs back into the tree. It waits there for the herd to pass and then recovers its kills.
Yet, the Jaguar is the least likely of the big cats to attack a human, and it has never been listed as a man eater. In fact, humans are a much greater threat to the Jaguar than the Jaguar is to them.
WHY SO FEW
Jaguars once roamed from the Southern United States to near the tip of South America. Today, they have disappeared from nearly half their range of a hundred years ago. Until the mid-1970’s, hunters killed thousands of Jaguar every year, for their pelts. In 1968 alone, over 13,500 of these were exported from the Americas. In 2002, it was estimated that fewer than 15,000 are left that are not in Zoos.
A wildlife conservation society study reports that nearly 40 percent of the Jaguars traditional homeland has been destroyed by deforestation. In Mexico alone, habitat equivalent to the size of a football field reportedly disappears every minute. This forces the Jaguar to prey on live—stock to survive.
EFFORTS TO PRESERVE
Some 200 countries supported regulations of the conservation on International Trade in Endangered species that make it illegal to hunt Jaguars for commercial purposes. National park preserves has been created to protect their natural habitat. In 1986, the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize became the world’s first Jaguar preserve. Additionally Mexico has set aside more than Biosphere on the Yucatan Peninsula to protect the Jaguar.
How successful such human efforts will be to preserve this “king of this jungle” remains to be seen.
