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Jaguar Swims Panama
Canal, Then Takes Own Picture
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Jaguar Swims Panama Canal, Then Takes Own
Picture
B y Levi Novey
A jaguar recently swam onto an island
located in the Panama Canal. It then
triggered a hidden camera that took its
picture. This is the first time a jaguar has
been photographed in the 86 year history of
3,707 acre Barro Colorado Island – one of the
most well-researched tropical ecosystems in
the world.
The hidden camera had been set up as part of
an annual effort to inventory mammals that
live on Barro Colorado Island. According to
the researchers who set up the cameras, the
finding is exciting given that jaguars are
already considered rare throughout the
entire country of Panama (see photo below).
So just how far did the jaguar have to swim?
Probably not that far– it most likely
traveled about the distance of two football
fields. But before you decide that’s a small
amount, have you asked yourself if you could
swim that far?
Barro Colorado Island is only about 200
yards from the mainland. It was created in
1913 when the Chagres River was damned to
create Gatun Lake, a central area in the
Panama Canal. The damning of the river did
not flood the entire height of the
rainforest that was there before, and the
higher ground essentially became Barro
Colorado Island.
Since 1923, the Smithsonian Tropical
Research Institute and its predecessors have
conducted extensive ecological research on
the island, making it one of the best
studied ecosystems throughout the entirety
of the tropics. Today the field research
station operated by Smithsonian hosts about
200 scientists each year. The ecosystem they
study has remained fairly intact from human
intervention since the initial creation of
the island.
Recording a jaguar on Barro Colorado is an
interesting wrinkle to our understanding of
the behavior and movement of the large cat
species (photo above). The jaguar has become
an endangered species because of hunting,
habitat loss, and habitat fragmentation. In
the relatively short time since their
application, hidden “camera traps” have been
a highly successful tool for conservation
efforts of rare animals like jaguars. While
it has been known that jaguars can swim, it
is perhaps more fascinating to discover one
roaming this area of Panama. With this kind
of specific information, wildlife corridors
that provide appropriate space for jaguar
movement can be better designed.
It’s almost impossible to create a specific
conservation plan for an elusive animal
whose movement patterns and whereabouts are
not clear beyond generalizations. But with
the aid of camera traps, jaguars have been
studied recently with much greater success
in countries like Peru and Ecuador. Earlier
this year a camera trap photographed the
first jaguar to have been seen in central
Mexico since 1900, bolstering hopes that the
jaguar’s numbers are recovering in that part
of its range. |
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