Jaguar Predation

[Balam]

Just as I thought, jaguars are predating on wild horses in los Llanos according to photographer Ernesto Badog who spent a lot of time in the Aurora Reserve in the Colombian Llanos tracking jaguars and studying the fauna of the area:

*This image is copyright of its original author

"Wild horses have been grazing on here (Aurora Reserve) for years, it's incredible to see them running through the savanna during sunsets. Wild horses too make part of the jaguar diet!"

Through my talk with Jorge Barragán, the owner of the hato, his claims that he hadn't witness predation were most likely refering to the domestic horses used to gather the cattle which are kept indoors and protected. It's important to highly that these reserves in los Llanos boast from hundreds to up to thousands of wild horses depending on their size. A study I read on the ecology of wild horses in hato El Frío, Venezuela, spoke about the pack of observed predation on horses by big cats due to the absence of said cats on the hato. I'm now interested to know of the people at Panthera who are doing plenty of work tracking these jaguars have more information about the predator-prey relationship between jaguars and wild horses, this is fascinating.

@epaiva @peter and everyone else might find this information interesting as well!  Reply