Thursday, July 31, 2014

Seeking justice for Corazón: jaguar killings test the conservation movement in Mexico

Eight years ago, a female jaguar cub was caught on film by a motion-triggered camera trap set in the foothills of canyons, oak forest, and scrubland that make-up the Northern Jaguar Reserve, just 125 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border. "This first-ever glimpse of a jaguar cub revealed the importance of this area's protective habitat and would catalyze the Northern Jaguar Reserve's expansion to the 50,000 acres that are safeguarded today," noted the Northern Jaguar Project (NJP) in Tucson, Arizona in a press release. Three years later, in 2009, the jaguar reappeared on film as an adult. They called her "Corazón" for the distinctive heart-shaped spot on her left shoulder. During the next five years, she was photographed 30 times on the reserve and became an icon for those working to expand conservation efforts in the area. In 2012, Dr. Rodrigo Medellín and PhD student Ivonne Cassaigne, researchers with the Instituto de Ecología at UNAM (Mexico's national university), began working to safeguard and monitor jaguars as they moved across unprotected areas adjacent to the Northern Jaguar Reserve, in partnership with a group called La Asociación para la Conservación del Jaguar en la Sierra Alta de Sonora. They were thrilled when they captured Corazón (or "Jaguar Female 01") and fitted her with a satellite GPS collar. But on February 25, 2014, the collar transmitted a mortality signal, and an email was sent to the UNAM researchers noting that no movement had been detected for more than five hours. Corazón was lost. Using Corazón's last known GPS location, a field technician traced the signal to her collar and found Corazón's carcass burned to conceal the crime of her illegal killing. Her $4,000 satellite collar—the device responsible for documenting the crime of Corazón's murder—was also destroyed, according to a UNAM bulletin. When tracking the last movements of Corazón back to her den, the footprints of a cub were found. Sadly, researchers believe this cub would have been unable to survive without its mother. Medellín told mongabay.com that while there is only one jaguar currently known in the U.S. (in Arizona), Mexico's jaguar population remains viable at around 4,000 individuals, a number his team verified in a 2012 published study. "We're still in good shape," Medellín told mongabay.com. "We have the right conditions to secure the future of the jaguar as a species in the country. But unfortunately the wheels are still turning very slowly."...more

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