With the objective of monitoring populations of Jaguar (Panthera onca) – a species in danger of extinction – in its territory, GPS collars were placed on three healthy individuals in the La Papalota Area Voluntarily Designated for Conservation (AVDC) in Nayarit. The captured specimens included two females and one male.
The first female had a GPS collar that was placed in November 2019 by the Nayarit Marismas Nacionales Biosphere Reserve personnel, so it was released.
The male was a recapture from 2019 and also had a previous collar, which was removed and replaced with a new one, with the aim of obtaining information about this animal for the second consecutive year. The second female had never been captured and so a collar, donated by Ron Thampson, Executive Director of the international association PrimeroConservation.org, was placed.
The catches are part of the academic project, “Ecology and conservation of the jaguar and its potential prey outside of the Natural Protected Areas of Nayarit, Mexico,” funded by the National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) and led by Victor Hugo Lujo Molina, professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit (UAN) and creator of the “Jaguars Without Protection” (JSP) project.
JSP is a project in which the owners of the AVDC (the Vallarta Chan family), academia (UAN, National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation), civil society (Pronatura Noroeste A.C,. PrimeroConservation.org), but mainly people from the communities surrounding the AVDC who participate in biological monitoring, community workshops, and various activities related to the conservation of the species collaborate.
The social component of the research is led by María Guadalupe Zamudio Guerrero, Doctor of Social Sciences student at the UAN.
Pronatura Noroeste A.C. has supported JSP with various efforts since 2016 and the technical team from the association recognizes the work and achievements of Victor Lujo and Ignacio Vallarta Chan in this great project. Observing jaguars developing and obtaining refuge in this area signals that each collaborative effort realized is important. A priority threat is poaching; to reduce it, conducting effective inspection and surveillance in the area should be better carried out by the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection with the aim of continuing the conservation and protection of wildlife in natural areas.
Between 2015 and 2020, 15 different jaguars have been identified; pregnant females, females with their offspring, and later these offspring were registered in the area as adult individuals. The information from these collars shows that jaguars spend between 60% and 80% of their time outside of Natural Protected Areas, exposing them to being run over, poisonings, poaching, and other dangers.
With an area of just 368 hectares, the La Papalota AVDC in the Municipality of Santiago Ixcuintla, Nayarit has been shown to be key in the maintenance of jaguar populations, as well as other felines and their prey at a regional level.
View the statement from the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas about the event.
