Urgent Project
Creating a Corridor for Carnivores in Mexico
Jaguars evolved during the last Ice Age approximately 3 million years ago in Eurasia . These felines entered North America sometime later by a land bridge that once crossed the Bering Strait from modern-day Russia to Alaska . From there , they expanded their range all the way to South America . While many large mammals like the giant ground sloth and sabercat went extinct during the last Ice Age , the adaptable Jaguar persevered .
Yet even the resilience of these cats cannot save them from the impacts of civilization . Today , they are struggling for survival in Mexico at the fringes of the land they once ruled .
Jaguars still have a foothold in the northernmost tropical deciduous forest of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range that runs north to south near the coast in western Mexico . A 2.5-million-acre watershed feeds streams and tributaries that flow down through valleys and deep canyons to feed the Concheno , Agua Caliente and Mayo Rivers of the region . It is here that a subpopulation of Jaguar and other wildlife find refuge in this otherwise dry region of the Sonoran desert .
Fewer than 200 Sonoran Jaguars cling to their isolated oasis . It is urgent that these remaining fragments of forest are protected as their population continues to decline . Logging , poaching , cattle ranching and large-scale mining threaten the well-being of these big cats and restrict their ability to reach other groups of Jaguars .
Without a protected corridor to geographically connect these Jaguars in the northern state of Sonora with Jaguars in the state of Sinaloa to the south , these cats are losing the genetic diversity and viability necessary to thrive . The two groups face localized extinction if they continue to live in isolation .
With our partner , Nature and Culture International , Rainforest Trust is working to establish the 2,138,854-acre Cuenca del Río Mayo ( Mayo River Basin ) Natural Resources Protected Area — an area three times the size of Yosemite National Park . This new area will fortify a wildlife corridor of over 4.2 million protected acres in the Sierra Madre Occidental for wide-roaming Jaguars and other wildlife .
Mexican Wolves Will Also Reap the Benefits
The Mexican Wolf , a subspecies of Grey Wolf , is another survivor of the Ice Age . This species was poisoned , trapped and hunted to near extinction between 1915 and 1973 . The last five survivors , captured between 1977 and 1980 , were bred in captivity and their offspring were reintroduced in Arizona and New Mexico in 1998 and Sonora , Mexico in 2011 . Approximately 35 Mexican Wolves were reintroduced into their historic Sonoran landscape . Once protected , Cuenca del Rio Mayo ’ s proximity to the existing Tutuaca and Papigochi federally protected areas will provide an additional 2.1 million acres of conserved habitat for the wolves to return to the territory that once was theirs . mexican wolf | fotocraz
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