Jaguar (
Panthera onca)
Care Manual
10
Association of Zoos and Aquariums
The modern
jaguar thrived in the US
Southwest and probably much further east
until burgeoning human populations forced
a long, slow retreat. It was essentially
eliminated from the United States around
1900 and has subsequently disappeared
from other parts of its range including all of
Chile, El Salvador, and Uruguay. The
present-day jaguar range extends from the
southern border of Arizona
in the United
States through Central America and South
America, east of the Andes, to the forests
of northern Argentina. Sporadic sightings
of male jaguars in Arizona beginning in the
mid-1990s and subsequent field research,
there and throughout the range, hint
strongly that if hunting and other forms of
persecution were removed,
jaguar
populations would rebound.
Today jaguar inhabits approximately
63 percent of its pre-Columbian range.
Although most range countries recognize
the intrinsic and ecological value of
maintaining the integrity of ecosystems for
which the jaguar serves as a key indicator,
land development for agriculture and
resource extraction
continues inexorably to
alter landscapes and isolate populations.
Natural habitat corridors persist,
connecting the larger patches of pristine
habitat; but this is due largely to their relative inaccessibility for human activity and the jaguar’s native
resilience (Sanderson
et al., 2002). See Figure 1 for a map of historic versus current jaguar ranges.
At the turn of the 21
st
Century, 17 percent of the jaguar’s historic range remained largely unstudied.
Most of that territory is in Brazil and México (about 2.3 million and 848,000 square kilometers,
respectively). Of the estimated 8.75 million square kilometers that jaguars are presumed to inhabit, the
largest remaining contiguous range centers in the Brazilian Amazon Basin, extending to the northeastern
coastline and southward to the Cerrado, Pantanal, and Chaco in Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. This
comprises almost 90 percent of the species’ present range. Of the total land occupied by jaguars today,
the good news is that some six million square kilometers
—
about 70 percent of the range
—
has a strong
chance for long-term sustainability. In addition to the core range mentioned above, a band of forest
stretching from southern Mexico Selva Maya through Guatemala and Belize and
another band from
northern Honduras through Panama and Colombia also have high sustainability ratings (Sanderson
et al.,
2002).
Another 1.6 million square kilometers (617,763.45 mi
2
)
—
roughly 18 percent of the total present
habitat
—
found in the northern Cerrado, most of the Venezuelan and Colombian llanos, the Costa
Rican/Panamanian highlands, and additional smaller portions of México continue have at least a medium
sustainability rating (Sanderson
et al., 2002).
Changes in the jaguar’s range, viewed in time-lapse over the past two centuries, bear similarity to a
drying seasonal pond, shrinking from all edges to leave ever smaller and more-isolated puddles. At
present, many of those
puddles remain linked, but concerted and enduring action will be required to
preserve the connections.
In habitat selection, jaguars require a water supply, dense cover, and sufficient prey (Mondolfi &
Hoogesteijn, 1982). Within those parameters, although habitat varies widely for the species, individual
animals rarely seem to move between eco-regions which include grassland, lowland tropical rainforest,
montane tropical rainforest, succulent and thorn scrub, temperate broadleaf forest, tropical monsoon and
Figure 1. Jaguar range map (
Panthera, 2009)
Jaguar (
Panthera onca)
Care Manual
11
Association of Zoos and Aquariums
dry forest, and tropical savannah woodland. The consistent necessary component to their habitat is
available plant cover. A preference
for water is also evident, and the species is an excellent and frequent
swimmer. Jaguars are found from sea level up to altitudes of 2,000 meters (Emmons, 1997).
Being near water becomes imperative during the dry season when water becomes scarce and the
jaguar should drink more frequently. This, as a consequence, restricts the jaguar to cover near isolated
pockets of water. It has been observed on numerous occasions that jaguars are water-loving cats; they
are probably the most water-loving felids in the world, notes Almeida (1976). He reports that jaguars often
seek relief from the heat in rivers and details sighting one swimming across the Orinoco River during the
rainy season when the river was 8–10 km (5–6.2 mi) wide. The jaguar is a very able swimmer, capable of
even carrying a kill while swimming. A jaguar was sighted in the Cano Ave
Maria carrying a heifer kill,
which it then hauled on top of a tree that was above the flood level (Almeida, 1976).
One probable reason that the jaguar occurs over such a wide geographic range and in such a broad
variety of habitats is that it is equipped to opportunistically exploit large and small prey, in water and on
land. In contrast to lions and, perhaps, leopards, whose prey are often predictably concentrated and easy
to find, jaguars live in rugged habitats where generally solitary prey animals are widely dispersed. As a
result, the jaguar’s hunting method seems to consist of extensive walking as it seeks encounters with
both prey and potential mates (Emmons, 1987).
Like many other jaguar characteristics, prey selection varies with geography and habitat. Capybara
(
Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) and peccaries are usually listed as the jaguar’s major food source in South
America, but crocodilians, fish, snakes, birds, and many additional species of small mammals are taken,
too (Emmons, 1987). In the Brazilian Pantanal, peccaries and caiman are noted as the primary prey
(Cavalcanti & Gese, 2009). Armadillos (
Dasypus novemcinctus, 33.3%)
and pacas (
Agouti paca, 23.3%)
constitute the bulk of the jaguar’s documented diet in southern Belize. Those two species, plus collared
peccary (
Tayassu tajacu, 23.3%), make up 80 percent of the diversity in the Belizean jaguar’s diet
(Weckel
et al., 2006). In a final example, near Calakmul, Mexico, biomass of the
top three jaguar prey
species is red brocket deer (
Mazama americana, 35%), collared peccary (
T. tajacu, 20%), and coati
(
Nasua narica, 18%) (Chávez, Ceballos & Amin, 2007).
Despite jaguars’ physical prowess, capability for stealth, and frequent proximity to human
settlements, the near complete absence of unprovoked attacks on humans by jaguars is interesting to
note. With extraordinarily rare exceptions, usually in self-defense, jaguars choose to retreat from direct
contact with people. On those documented occasions when attacks have occurred, humans always
created the circumstances which led to them. Rabinowitz (2014) concludes that virtually all cattle-killing
jaguars he examined in Belize had been seriously injured by shotgun blasts (or were the offspring of such
injured cats) and resorted to preying upon livestock due to resulting physical disability.
The jaguar is primarily a solitary predator. However, the advent of GPS telemetry and camera traps
may redefine the species as potentially gregarious, if not social. Almeida was the
first to provide any
tangible observations of the jaguar in the wild in his book
Jaguar Hunting in the Mato Grosso (Almeida,
1976). He notes that females had no set breeding season in the Pantanal area of the Mato Grosso. He
reports hearing jaguars mating on numerous occasions and observed the tracks of pairs at varying times
during different months. He also observes that females, upon coming into heat, moved about searching
and calling for a mate far outside their normal territory. At other times, he notes that the jaguar tended to
be solitary and that it has a designated hunting territory that it will defend against intrusion from others of
the same species and sex. In the Pantanal, both males and females have been occasionally detected
less than 200 meters apart, which is near enough for them to be aware of one another. Camera trap
photos show adult females in contact with males before current young disperse. They also show both
males and females associating and possibly mating with more than one animal of the opposite sex
(Cavalcanti & Gese, 2009). Camera-trapping evidence also strongly suggests that jaguars make
extensive, routine use of both game trails and human paths and roads (Silver
et al., 2004).
Radio-collar tracking and camera-trapping data indicate that jaguars can be active around-the-clock,
but they are mainly active in the hours near sunrise and sunset. Contradiction exists in published
literature on
this issue; it seems to result from some authors connecting crepuscular activity with day
while others classify it as night. Unlike lions, which were shown to rest as much as 20 hours a day
(Schaller, 1972), there are indications that jaguars may be active approaching 11 hours a day (Cavalcanti
& Gese, 2009). See Table 4 for the activity pattern of one wild female jaguar.