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JOHN DELANEY (718-220-3275; [email protected])DATE: JAN. 25, 2002

JAGUARS PERSIST, DESPITE HUMAN INCURSION, STUDY SAYSBut conservationists warn that now is the time to act if healthy populations are to be preserved

NEW YORK -- Though the jaguar -- the New World's only true big cat species -- still persists from Argentina to the southwestern United States, it has lost more than half of its range from a century ago. A new study in the February issue of the journal Conservation Biology says that an unprecedented conservation effort by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) may offer the best hope to conserve jaguars into the next century.

The study reports the findings of 35 jaguar experts that identify some 51 jaguar conservation areas in 16 countries that are important to the species' long-term survival. These areas represent 30 of the 36 ecological types where jaguars live, and range from tropical forest to deserts.

"Saving a wide-ranging species like the jaguar means saving populations in all the significantly different settings where it occurs," said WCS scientist, Dr. Eric Sanderson, the study's lead author.

The authors say that that the jaguar is likely to survive over the long-term in 70 percent of its current known range -- given the successful implementation of necessary conservation efforts. The big cats are doing best in the middle of their range, in and around the Amazon Basin. Unfortunately, the status of jaguars is still unknown across large areas - perhaps as much as 18 percent of its historic range.

They also warn that the current trend of conserving biodiversity "hotspots" and ecoregions may let the jaguar and other wide-ranging species fall through the cracks.

"This research shows that the single-species approach may be key to preserving the jaguar," said Dr. Sanderson.

Already, WCS has begun to implement this range-wide jaguar conservation program, funded by a $1 million grant by the car company, Jaguar North America, over a five-year period. The program has brought together experts from throughout Latin America and North America to coordinate on-the-ground efforts to save jaguars.

"Before the program began, there had been no consensus on how to save jaguars," said Sanderson, "Most countries do not have endangered species legislation of any kind, and if they do, laws are unlikely to be consistent across the 18 nations where the jaguar is currently found."

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