Mexico has signed a historic agreement with the international feline protection group,
Panthera, to work towards protecting the jaguar. Senator Gabriela Cuevas, President of the Foreign Relations Committee, signed the agreement with Panthera's co-founder and CEO Dr. Alan Rabinowitz. Although the jaguar has deep roots in Mexican native culture its historic range has been reduced by 50% and is now endangered. The Mexican government will formulate a recovery plan for the big cat and Panthera will develop a plan to work with conservation activities in the country and take action to implement measures that are part of its
Jaguar Corridor Initiative in 13 other Latin American countries. That initiative aims to connect core jaguar populations unrestrained by political boundaries from northern Argentina to Mexico.
[map] Senator Cuevas said at the signing in April that the jaguar is the most representative American feline and is a icon of biodiversity.
Jaguars currently inhabit 18 countries in Latin America and they occasionally inhabit the borderlands of the US southwest. The Jaguar Corridor covers about six million square kilometers and can include a ranch, a plantation or even someone's homestead as long as a jaguar can safely pass through it. Recently the US Fish & Wildlife Service proposed designating some areas of New Mexico and Arizona as jaguar habitat. The cat once made its home in the US but was driven out by agriculturalists and hunters. The project of re-establishing America's largest feline and only member of the genus
Panthera cannot be considered complete until the Jaguar Corridor crosses the US border. As an apex predator, saving the jaguar from extinction insures the health of ecosystems in which humans and other wildlife live.
