75 wild jaguars shot — on film

75 wild jaguars shot — on film

South American camera traps in have bagged 75 jaguars, so far, in a first census of the rainforest felines. The Wildlife Conservation Society today released images from two Ecuadorian forest reserves, showing jaguars, wild dogs, and peccaries, pig-like jaguar prey. The photo traps trip when they detect body heat from passing animals, allowing a survey of jungle trails.

“The main threats to jaguars in Ecuador are habitat degradation and loss due to various human activities,” said WCS team leader Santiago Espinosa, in a statement.  “Bushmeat hunting by local communities has increased due to road development that provides access to otherwise isolated areas.” More remote areas harbor five times more jaguars than heavily hunted ones, the survey finds.

Other animals captured on film: white-lipped peccaries, sometimes called javelinas  Peccaries travel in herds to fend off attack by jaguars and pumas.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2009/01/75-wild-jaguars.html

Jaguar Vamps for the Camera ~ Camera-struck big cat poses in South American park

He’s beautiful and he knows it. A male jaguar recently acted like he was on a fashion runway in Manhattan, rather than his home in Kaa-Iya National Park in Bolivia, when it plopped down in front of a remote "camera trap" and allowed a remarkable 35 pictures to be taken over a five-and-a-half hour period. Two days earlier, the same cat languished for 90 minutes, when 19 photos were shot.

Biologists from the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) are using the remote cameras to census the park, which may contain more jaguars than any protected area in Latin America. Normally the cameras, which are tripped by an infrared beam, capture little more than a fleeting glimpse of wildlife.

No one knows why this particular jaguar spent so much time in front of the camera, where it alternatively sat, laid on his side or on his back with his feet in the air, rolled over, slept or simply stared back at the lens. "Perhaps he’s just a big ham," speculated WCS field biologist Erika Cuéllar, who is helping coordinate the WCS jaguar survey.

The Wildlife Conservation Society is working to protect jaguars throughout their range with projects in several Latin American countries designed to safeguard healthy populations of this spectacular big cat.

Click here to read more about The Wildlife Conservation Society and Jaguars.

—
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
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http://www.BigCatRescue.org
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