Man-eaters

[GuateGojira]

In fact, jaguars do share the same amount of terrain with humans like lions and tigers, although not much as leopards.

One point is culture. In America, the jaguar was worshiped as the tiger in Asia, but the jaguars always had that instinct to avoid people and despite its sacred state, they could be killed for its skins, this was a common occurrence in the Mayan culture in Guatemala and the Aztecs in Mexico. In Guatemala there is, as far I know, not a single case of a jaguar attacking a human, but this could be because many of those cases are never reported and the "problematic" animal is just killed by the locals. The jaguar was also feared as the lion on modern post-colonial culture, while the puma was stated to be the "friend of the Christian" in the old books because it was said that they don't attacked humans. However, it is clear that the attacks of pumas were more common than those of jaguars which prove that the old stories of evil jaguars were probably just an intent to dissipate the old cults of the jaguar in Latin America.

Other point is the over-hunt. Jaguars were hunted intensively, with literally thousands of skins been exported legally from South America to North America and Europe. Probably, this also affected the behavior of the great cat. I think is fair to mention one curious case with the Snow Leopard, which is say that is so tame in presence of humans that even a child with stones can frighten it. This could suggest that the normally calm behavior of the jaguar, plus the over-hunt, have prepared to jaguar to avoid humans in order to survive.

Finally, the worst problem between jaguars and humans is the cattle. In all the countries of Central and South America there is the problem of the cattle raiders, but this is because jaguars evolved to kill large animals, which were extinct since about 12,000 years ago in its habitat. So, when the Europeans bring cattle and horses, it was like if the large prey returned to the new world and the jaguars began to kill them with alacrity. This had created a big problem, specially in areas like the Pantanal.

So, despite the intense relation between jaguars and humans since ancient times, it is very interesting to see that this great cat has not reacted like its cousins of the old world. In modern times, thankfully, there is no more "legal" commerce with jaguar skins, but the conflict with cattle owners and the habitat destruction is still the first problem to the jaguar preservation. It is sad to say that the jaguar is extinct in the USA (native population, those animals since 2000 came from Mexico), El Salvador and Chile. However, new efforts from great scientists like Dr Rabinowitz, creating the famous "Jaguar Corridors", are the best examples that conserving large cats and sustaining a healthy, although not always perfect, relation between humans and jaguars IS possible, with the effort of the Governments.

Check this image about the jaguar corridors initiative:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I most say that one of the most healthy and stable populations of wild jaguars live in my country Guatemala, specifically in the area of El Petén, with about 250 to 300 specimens. [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img] However, this doesn't mean that the population is safe at all, there are still some illegal hunts and many specimens are been poisoned when they kill cattle. Guatemala has a loooooong way to walk for jaguar conservation and Belize is a good example, with about 600 specimens at a smaller area. Interestingly, all the jaguars in this region are among the smallest ones, with some specimens no larger than a large retriever dog. Other strong point in the jaguar conservation is that ALL the populations are genetically the same, so instead of several "subspecies", all the jaguars from Mexico to Argentina are one unique species with no subspecies.
 
This is an interesting link on the conflict between humans and jaguar: http://www.jaguarnetwork.org/hjc.htm

It seems that at difference with the other Panthera members, jaguars are not man-eaters and should be discarded from this topic, which focus on "Man-Eaters". Reply