Activities
Jaguars
WCS began working to conserve and understand jaguars nearly 40 years ago in the 1970s, when Dr. George Schaller completed pioneering studies of jaguars, focusing mainly on their ecology and range use within the region. From 2001 – 2005, WCS conducted long-term studies on jaguars (Dr. Sandra Cavalcanti) in the Pantanal on a private cattle ranch near the town of Miranda, in Mato Grosso do Sul. The goal of the jaguar study was to examine the interactions between jaguars and livestock on a working ranch.
Since 2013 and together with our partner institutions, WCS-Brazil has been actively working to launch new conservation, research, and monitoring activities related to jaguars, primarily in Amazonas State. See our objectives above.
In parallel with our work in the Amazon, WCS is working with our partners to conserve jaguars in other Brazilian Biomes where habitat loss, fragmentation, and other threats are very high,including the Caatinga and the Atlantic Forest. Please see our page on the Caatinga for more information on this project. In the Atlantic Forest, with financial support from the Liz Clairborne and Art Ortenberg Foundation, WCS and other partners are supporting the Institute for Ecological Research (IPÊ) to implement a long-term conservation and research project entitled “Jaguars as Landscape Detectives for the Conservation of the Atlantic Forest of Brazil”. The main goal of this long-term project has been to develop a network of wild core-reserves for the upper Paraná Region of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, using the jaguar as an indicator of ecosystem health and flagship species for the identification of areas for conservation and ecological restoration and planning of ecological corridors. To learn more contact Dr.Laury Cullen at IPÊ.