A new jaguar arrived at Parque Iberá a new jaguar, born as part of a rewilding project in El Parque Nacional Impenetrable, Chaco, the jaguar Takajay was transferred and released in Iberá, Corrientes, where it will increase the number of reintroduced individuals and contribute genetic variability.
The province of Corrientes, where jaguars became completely extinct for several decades, is now home to a reintroduced population that is growing favorably and already has at least 35 jaguars living freely. This ecological restoration project, also known as rewilding, is the first in the world to bring back the jaguar to a place where it was extinct.
After a new bold conservation action, a new male, Takajay, crossed the gates of the large enclosures at the Jaguar Reintroduction Center with a double mission: to continue increasing the reintroduced population and contribute genetic variability.
Takajay carries the genes of his father, Qaramta, a wild male from the Chaco Impenetrable, and both his birth and his transfer between the Iberá and El Impenetrable national parks and his release are part of a long trajectory of work carried out jointly by the provinces of Corrientes and Chaco, the National Parks Administration, and Rewilding Argentina for the recovery of the “creole tiger.”
Takajay and Nala grew up in El Impenetrable under the care of their mother Tania
Takajay, along with his sister Nalá, were the first jaguar cubs born in decades in the Argentine Chaco. In that region, the jaguar is nearly extinct, and there had been no record of females for over thirty years. Thanks to the successful crossbreeding in October 2020 of a wild feline (Qaramta) with a captive one (Tania), an unprecedented conservation action in the world, Takajay and Nala were born at the end of January 2021.
These births brought hope, and Takajay, which means “strong and brave” in Wichí language, and Nala, which means “sun” in Qom, were the names chosen by the children from neighboring schools of the El Impenetrable National Park in Chaco. They were raised by their mother Tania in special enclosures without human contact with the aim of being released once adults and independent. In these enclosures, they went through a crucial stage to survive in the wild: there they took their first steps, and their mother taught them how to hunt. Nalá has already been released in El Impenetrable, and Takajay will contribute to the conservation of its species in Iberá.
The dream of seeing jaguars free in the Iberá wetlands is now a reality, the result of long-term work involving several institutions and experts. The project began in 2012 with the construction of the Jaguar Reintroduction Center on lands that were under provincial jurisdiction, and continued when they were donated to the Nation to create the Iberá National Park.
The encouraging results, the commitment of the provinces of Corrientes and Chaco to restore the splendor of their nature, and this administration’s decision to make restoration and rewilding one of the main pillars of its conservation agenda in National Parks provide hope for the future of these projects that are at the forefront of the recovery of this species worldwide.
The return of the top predator to Iberá and El Impenetrable is part of a larger restoration project whose mission is to achieve complete and functional ecosystems through the reintroduction of locally extinct key species due to our actions. Furthermore, the return of this impressive feline represents a driving force for nature tourism based on wildlife observation, which is already having a positive impact on the development of local communities.
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