Researchers Blown Away After Finding Jaguar Population Up 30% Across Mexico

Researchers Blown Away After Finding Jaguar Population Up 30% Across Mexico

Researchers Blown Away After Finding Jaguar Population Up 30% Across Mexico A jaguar on the Piquiri river – credit, Charles J. Sharp from Sharp Photography CC 4.0. BY-SA via Wikimedia Imagine sitting in southern Texas and knowing that in less than a day you could drive to se the world’s third largest cat. That is absolutely the reality in Mexico today, following a second national jaguar population census which found this charismatic cat is actually increasing in numbers across the country, reaching around 5,300 animals. Gerardo Ceballos and colleagues conducted the first census in 2010, hoping to grasp more or less the gravity of the risk of extinction faced by the jaguar. They were estimating they’d find around 1,000 in the whole of Mexico. But rather than the risk of extinction, their results conveyed a different narrative. They found four-times as many cats as they expected. “It was a great surprise, terrific news,” Ceballos said. “Obviously 4,000 means the species is still in danger of …