A few times a year, wildlife officials in Texas receive excited phone calls. “I just saw something that looks like a really big cat, or maybe a giant weasel,” a caller might say. “Was it a jaguarundi?” No, they’re not reporting a sighting of a mythical beast like the chupacabra. But they might as well […]
Tag: jaguar
A mountain lion attacked a nine-year-old girl who was playing hide-and-seek at a church camp in Washington state
At a church camp in Washington state, a mountain lion attacked a nine-year-old girl who was playing hide-and-seek, gravely injuring her and sending her pals fleeing in terror. On Saturday at the camp in the small town of Fruitland, north-west of Spokane, Lily A Kryzhanivskyy and two other youngsters were playing in the woods. The […]
Could jaguars move farther northward and repopulate the Southwestern U.S.?
The powerful and elegant jaguar is the only big cat in the Americas and the third largest in the world after lions and tigers. It was once found all the way from central Argentina to the Southwestern United States. The biggest difference between jaguars and leopards, which live in Asia and Africa, is their size […]
Wildlife experts fear that a rare Persian leopard temporarily housed in an Iraqi zoo risks an uncertain future
Wildlife experts fear that a rare Persian leopard temporarily housed in an Iraqi zoo risks an uncertain future. The male leopard was caught in a trap set by a peasant who had lately lost dozens of goats in the mountainous Batifa area of northern Duhok province, in the autonomous Kurdistan region, and its right hind […]
New areas of primary forest cleared in Brazil’s ‘lawless’ Lábrea
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. […]
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 […]