Satellite imagery reveals several areas of primary rainforest were cleared alongside agricultural fields in the Brazilian Amazon, all in close proximity to Indigenous and protected lands. In March, the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab at the University of Maryland detected areas of newly cleared forest in Lábrea municipality, in the state of Amazonas. […]
Tag: jaguar
Dozens of big cats seized by US authorities from Tiger King zoo in Oklahoma
US authorities have seized 68 big cats from an Oklahoma animal park that featured in the 2020 Netflix series Tiger King, the Department of Justice has said. In an affidavit of more than 50 pages, prosecutors said they believed a jaguar, seven lions, 46 tigers and 15 lion-tiger hybrids owned by Jeffrey Lowe and his […]
In Indonesia, an illegal leopard trade thrives out of sight, new study shows
This is the story of how Indonesia is losing its spots. In a recent paper published in Nature Conservation, researchers found that the archipelagic nation has a significant illegal trade in two regional leopard species: the Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas) and the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi). This trafficking could pose a serious threat […]
Dying of curiosity: Why people shoot harpy eagles
The rancher peers at an enormous bird high in the treetops. Reining in his horse, he squints upward. It’s not moving; maybe it will still be there when he gets back. An hour later, he returns with a gun. The huge animal is still there, motionless. Taking aim, he fires, and the heavy body comes […]
Cat corridors between protected areas is key to survival of Cerrado’s jaguars
With no natural predators to worry about, jaguars (Panthera onca) roam the forests of South and Central America. This feline is found in 18 countries, but only 4% of its critical habitat is effectively protected. The lack of protection has allowed its habitat to be destroyed and fragmented, the main reason why this emblematic species […]
As the Amazon unravels into savanna, its wildlife will also suffer
At the beginning of the 1990s, while observing the large trees of the Amazon ceding ground to the scrub-like vegetation of the Cerrado, in a process driven by human activity, Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre conceived of the hypothesis that a process of savannization of the world’s greatest tropical forest was underway. Thirty years later, a […]
Trump’s border wall construction threatens survival of jaguars in the US
By the 1960s, the North American jaguar had vanished from the southern US borderland after being hunted to extinction. Yet in the mid-1990s, there was a remarkable discovery: the jaguar had reappeared in the Sky Islands of Arizona, a region of rugged linked mountain ranges spanning the US and Mexico border that boasts the highest […]
The Amazon’s short-eared dog was thought to be a scavenger. Now there’s video
In 2016, conservation biologist Holly O’Donnell was striding through the Amazon rainforest in southwestern Peru, recording every mammal she saw or heard while performing a line transect survey for the Peruvian NGO Fauna Forever. A few minutes into her walk, she smelled something fetid. Following the scent several meters off the trail, she found the […]