The wild cat conservation group Panthera has spotted a highly elusive jaguar thanks to the use of trail cameras, for the second time this year.
Sighted in June, the adult male cat was strolling through the binational corridor, a critical jungle passageway along the Guatemala-Honduras border connecting jaguar populations in these regions.
It comes after an earlier sighting of an adult male in February this year, and marks the first time in a decade that Panthera has observed the species on both sides of this border region.
“We are definitely very excited,” said Dr. Bárbara Escobar Anleu, Panthera’s Guatemala country coordinator.
“Seeing an animal as majestic as the jaguar using areas that both Panthera and other institutions are working to conserve serves as an excellent motivation and a reminder of why we do this work.”
Jaguars are the largest cat species in the Western Hemisphere and are present in 18 countries throughout the Americas, with conservationists estimating that there are some 173,000 individuals in the wild.
However, habitat destruction and fragmentation have meant that the species has lost roughly 50% of its historical geographical range, with jaguars classified as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
According to Dr. Anleu, Panthera began monitoring jaguars in the binational corridor as a joint effort between its Guatemala and Honduras divisions in 2017.
Since then, the organization has placed “at least 120 camera traps” throughout the corridor, with a particular focus on detecting female jaguars and indicating whether they are reproducing.
Female jaguars, however, are much more elusive than males. Unlike wide-ranging males that roam massive territories (observed up to 40,000 hectares), females practice philopatry, whereby they stay close to their natal birth territory.
Although both sightings this year were of male jaguars, Dr. Anleu explained how they provide vital evidence that jaguars are still using this passageway.
“The camera trap images of the jaguars in both Honduras and Guatemala give us hope — showing that jaguars are still present, even in the midst of all the challenges and threats they face,” she said.
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