The Largest Cat Native to the Americas lives Today in La Guajira

January 8, 2019. With their characteristic grandness and elegance, a Jaguar, a species considered the largest cat native to the Americas was captured by one of the 36 camera traps installed by Cerrejón, within one of La Guajira’s tropical dry forests currently part of the areas rehabilitated by the company, where open-pit coal mining was carried out before.

Cerrejón monitors the native species through its environmental programs, allowing the study of the biodiversity in the region for the purpose of establishing action plans that contribute to their recovery, protection and preservation. From 2016 on, it has been recorded the presence of five jaguars in the surrounding areas of La Mina, something that did not happen since 1976; this is a positive indicator of the gradual recovery of the zone’s tropical dry forest ecosystem.

A symbol of abundance and richness

The jaguar (Panthera onca), is the largest cat native to the Americas, and without any doubt, one of the world’s most emblematic and representative species not only due to their cultural, cosmological, economic and social value, but also due to the significance it has for the balance of ecosystems, the biological connectivity, and the health of the habitats they occupy.

There are strategic preservation elements considered for the preservation of this key species. The presence of Jaguars is an indicator to measure the ecosystems’ health. Monitoring the jaguar is a preservation tool that provides some information on habitat changes, prey availability, waterbodies, corridors functionality, as well as the main threats they face.

The jaguar’s survival is given by the permanence of these large extensions of connected habitat, where there is abundance of species for consumption, located away from threats such as the human being, that attempts against their survival.  In this fashion, it is promoted the health of ecosystems and the protection of this species, currently an endangered species.