Jaguars are at risk in the Amazon due to deforestation – 02/24/2023 – Environment

A new map of the natural reserves in the Brazilian Amazon that are most important for the preservation of jaguars (panthera onca) revealed an ironically dangerous situation for the species. It so happens that the places with the highest population density of big cats are also among those that suffer the greatest pressure from threats such as deforestation, forest fires and the advancement of livestock.

The conclusions are in an article recently published in the specialized journal Communications Biology. The objective of the work, signed by researchers from USP, the environmental organization WWF and the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom), is to identify priority areas for the conservation of the species, which has already lost about half of its original territory in the Americas.

“Unfortunately, the best density estimates [populacional das onças] coincide with the areas that are under strong pressure from the expansion of the agricultural frontier in the Amazon, whose advances were intentionally encouraged in recent years”, summarizes Juliano Bogoni, postdoctoral researcher at USP in Piracicaba and first author of the study.

In their work, the team took as a starting point a previous study that had estimated the presence of individuals of the species based on data from camera traps (that is, when the infrared sensor of cameras positioned in the forest triggers when the animals are present). They also calibrated these estimates with data on the presence of jaguars obtained locally, in field work.

This information was crossed with the presence of protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon. The researchers classified these areas into two main types: those of strict protection —dedicated exclusively to the preservation of biodiversity— and those of sustainable use, in which economic activities considered to have low impact are allowed.

They also took into account indigenous lands, whose demarcation normally greatly reduces the loss of forests and biodiversity in the areas they encompass.

“We were very conservative in our estimates”, says Marcelo Oliveira, co-author of the study and leader of the WWF-Brazil endangered species protection program. “We propose an average density of 2.06 oz. [a cada 100 quilômetros quadrados] in the Amazon, but we know that this can vary a lot. In the Mamirauá region, for example, it is possible to have ten jaguars in the same area.”

It seems little —a total of less than 30,000 felines for the region as a whole—, but that’s what makes sense taking into account the need for prey and territory for a carnivore of this size.

Also using an index that measures the level of threat to these protected areas, the researchers identified a list of ten reserves (among hundreds existing in the region) that are home to 13.2% of the remaining jaguar population. These same areas, however, are the ones that are affected by 20% of deforestation and forest fires in the Amazon reserves, in addition to 23% of the presence of pastures, all factors that are bad news for the big cats.

According to Bogoni, the coincidence between the large population of jaguars and many threats is explained by the fact that the environmental conditions that favor the presence of carnivores also make these local regions coveted by human activity.

“The areas with the highest density of jaguars coincide with the greatest presence of threats because they are also the areas that have the highest productivity estimates [disponibilidade de nutrientes] and other environmental factors,” he says.

The trend is that, if the threats are not mitigated, these regions will lose their current thriving cat population.

Another important fact is the coincidence between these areas that are crucial for conservation and indigenous lands —of the ten listed, eight are territories belonging to Amazonian ethnic groups, such as the Xingu Indigenous Park and the lands of the Yanomami.

“It’s worrying because we don’t know what happened there in recent years. With the massive presence of miners in Yanomami territory, for example, jaguar prey must have been much more hunted, which would affect their population,” he says. Marcelo Oliveira.

The identified areas also tend to be located in the so-called arc of deforestation, the most pressured area in the Amazon territory to date, generally on the “edges” of the forest with the most open vegetation. And also in border regions, close to the Peruvian and Bolivian Amazon territory, for example.