Days before the commemoration of World Jaguar Day, its conservation faces a severe blow following the disappearance of Acaí.
Weeks ago, the female released in October stopped sending signals from her GPS collar. After an intense search by land and air, the device was found submerged in the Bermejo River.
It seems the collar was torn off and thrown into the water to hide a new case of illegal hunting of this key species.
Despite this sad news, there is hope in the field of jaguar conservation: today, the reintroduction projects in Corrientes and Chaco are being strengthened.
The details of these programs shortly before World Jaguar Day this November 29.
The Acaí case: death confirmed by GPS collar
Acaí was released on October 5, 2024, as part of the conservation project in Chaco.
Her GPS collar stopped sending signals on October 25, which immediately raised alarms.
“The monitoring collar was key to almost immediately determining that Acaí had been killed,” reported Rewilding Argentina.
The hypothesis of the teams on the ground, reinforced by testimonies from locals, indicates that the female was killed and her collar thrown into the river.
The National Parks Administration filed a complaint with the justice system.
Rewilding Argentina will become a plaintiff so that those responsible receive the punishment established by law, which includes heavy fines and imprisonment.
Jaguar conservation in Iberá: the model that inspires
Corrientes leads the most successful jaguar conservation program in the country.
Since 2012, the province has been working with National Parks and Rewilding Argentina at the Reintroduction Center located in Esteros del Iberá.
The region had gone seven decades without records of jaguars in the wild.
In 2021, the first individuals raised in the park were released after an international coordination process with institutions from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Today, more than 40 jaguars live freely in Iberá, a figure that represents around 15% of the national population.
This number is significant considering that throughout the Argentine territory, only between 200 and 250 specimens survive.
“With 40 jaguars living freely in Iberá, some of the expected impacts are beginning to show,” states the foundation.
The joint monitoring with CONICET and the Jaguar Project analyzes effects on prey, vegetation, and the behavior of other species.
The commitment to recover the Gran Chaco
El Impenetrable faces a more critical situation than Corrientes.
Less than ten male jaguars survived there in recent years, with no confirmed presence of females since 1990.
In 2018, a park ranger discovered tracks of the male Qaramta, the only surviving individual in the entire region.
Equipped with a GPS collar, it allowed an unprecedented crusade: his mating with females raised in captivity and transferred from Iberá.
The year 2024 marked a new stage in the Chaco jaguar conservation.
Five females were released in El Impenetrable to promote the recovery of the feline, although Acaí fell victim to poachers.
Despite this episode, the discovery of the first cub born in the wild –son of the jaguar Nalá– shook the conservation scene and confirmed that the reintroduction is advancing.
The challenges of jaguar conservation
The Rewilding Argentina Foundation identifies three critical factors explaining the decline of the jaguar:
- poaching;
- habitat transformation, and;
- population fragmentation
For this reason, the feline has lost more than 95% of its original distribution area.
“Government organizations and our foundation are committed to strengthening the reintroduction project, while supporting the search for the hunters,” declared Rewilding after the Acaí case.
The Argentine program is the first worldwide attempt to reestablish the jaguar in regions where it had become extinct.
The local advances make it a case study for initiatives in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and the southern United States.
The commitment seeks to restore the ecological balance in the Gran Chaco, a biome covering one million square kilometers and constituting the second-largest forest in South America after the Amazon.
