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Defenders in Action: Jaguar Reserve Established to Help Rare Cats on Borderlands
In what could be one of the crowning achievements in North American jaguar recovery, Defenders helped establish a 45,000-acre reserve in Sonora, Mexico, to protect the worlds' northernmost population of the rare cats.
In 2003, Naturalia, a Mexican conservation organization, purchased a 10,000-acre ranch in the heart of this jaguar population. Defenders collected the next $200,000—thanks to a generous donation from the Wendy P. McCaw Foundation—to help launch a broader campaign led by the Tucson-based Northern Jaguar Project to secure adjacent jaguar habitat. Early in 2008, after raising money from 600 individuals and foundations, the groups closed on the purchase of additional ranchlands, completing the 70-square-mile reserve. "The reserve is important particularly for the last remaining breeding population of northern jaguars," says Defenders' Craig Miller. "But it will protect numerous other rare and important wildlife species as well, including the northernmost breeding population of ocelots, military macaws and neotropical river otters, and the southernmost nesting sites for bald eagles." Desert tortoises, gila monsters and eared trogons will also greatly benefit now that the land is protected.
In addition to protecting habitat, Defenders is working with its partners to offer incentives for wildlife conservation to ranchers in jaguar country as well as compensation for cattle lost to jaguar and puma predation.
Ranchers on land surrounding the jaguar reserve are encouraged to protect wildlife by participating in a photo contest with remote, motion-triggered cameras placed in areas where the big cats are likely to prowl. Defenders supplies the cameras, and once a month a cowboy hired by Defenders and Naturalia visits the site to check the photos and to award ranchers $50 to $500 for pictures of jaguars, pumas, ocelots and bobcats that passed through their property. The project, although in its early stages, has met with great success. "One rancher, when asked what he was going to do with the money, joked that he planned to buy more ocelots for his land because photos of them are now worth more than his cattle," says Miller. Defenders has also helped establish a jaguar guardian program, where young biologists work to stop jaguar killing while assisting with research projects at the reserve and outreach activities in the nearest community of Sahuaripa.
"By working on the ground with affected parties to win the acceptance of jaguars and by assisting with research efforts to guide conservation actions, Defenders can help to preserve one of the most majestic—and threatened—animals in North America," says Miller.
For more information visit www.defenders.org/jaguar.
