Guyana - Mainstay residents trap huge jaguar

Mainstay residents trap huge jaguar 

12-03-2016  | By KNews | Filed Under News Kaieteur News, Guyana


Weeks after a Mainstay/Whayaka resident captured a jaguar by luring the animal into a wooden trap, Chris Allen, and his cousin, Troy Fredricks, are responsible for successfully capturing a second jaguar.

On Wednesday night sometime around 20:00 hours, at an area called ”Jump, Jump”, the exact area where the first jaguar was caught, the two men activated their trap with more success.
It was noted that once the residents were cautioned not to harm the jaguars, they have opted to constructing wooden traps in the area for the safe capture of the jaguars.

According to reports, Allen was promised a large sum of money for the capture of the first jaguar but never received that money. Both Allen and Fredricks are now reluctant to hand over the jaguar unless they are handsomely rewarded monetarily.

It is still yet not clear how long Fredricks intends to house this second animal. However from reports, it is understood that members of the Environmental Protection Agency will not venture to the Coast to claim the animal. The jaguars venture from the savannahs in search of food given the drought conditions.

But since their emergence, they have been creating tremendous havoc in the hinterland areas. Many residents have complained of losing their dogs and other domesticated animals to the roaming jaguars.

Meanwhile, residents living in Tapakuma, trapped another huge jaguar which has since escaped. It was reported that the cage (trap) was not sturdy. (Yannason Duncan)

Only Known Jaguar in U.S. Filmed in Rare Video

Conservationists filmed El Jefe—which means “the boss” in Spanish—roaming Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains 

03-02-2016 National Geographic

El Jefe, the only wild jaguar known in the United States, has made his film debut. In unprecedented video released by the nonprofits Conservation CATalyst and the Center for Biological Diversity, the big cat is seen prowling the Santa Rita Mountains near Tucson, Arizona.

He's no stranger to the media limelight, though: Trail cameras have photographed the male more than a hundred times over the past three years, and schoolchildren named him El Jefe—which means "the boss" in Spanish—during a nationwide contest in 2015. (See "'Indomitable' Jaguars May Have Lessons in Survival for Us.")

To catch the solitary cat on camera, conservationists used dogs to sniff out jaguar scat, and then installed cameras in these strategic spots.

A U.S. jaguar is rare indeed. As late as the 19th century, the big cats frequently roamed from northern Argentina into Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. But ranchers and farmers settling the American West pushed the world's third-largest cat out of its territory.

By the time Arizona's last legally hunted jaguars were shot in the 1960s, there were no known females left in the U.S. The species is now listed as near-threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Today only the occasional outlier like El Jefe makes an appearance. (See "First Jaguar Caught in U.S. Put to Sleep.")

“He's typical of the extreme toehold that this species maintains in the U.S.,” says Luke Hunter, president and chief conservation officer for Panthera, a global wild-cat conservation organization.

“Since 1996 there has been evidence of a jaguar in New Mexico or Arizona every year. But I think it has been a total of four or five individuals and they've all been adult males.”

El Jefe and his male predecessors seem to have dispersed from the closest breeding population which is located in Sonora, Mexico, more than 125 miles (200 kilometers) to the south.

“Probably these individuals left that breeding population in Sonora and struck out on their own as young male jaguars do,” Hunter explains. “Their mothers kick them out of their birth home range, and these young male cats are great explorers.” (Learn more about National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative.)

Thanks to his epic journey, El Jefe is the boss of 764,207 acres (309,263 hectares) of Arizona and New Mexico set aside by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as critical jaguar habitat.

“He's managed to find what a male jaguar really wants—space and a good habitat with lots of prey like white-tailed deer,” Hunters says.

More jaguars would likely find the area to their liking, Hunter adds, but females' stay-at-home nature leaves future U.S. population growth in doubt. (See "Pictures: Jaguars Spotted on Colombian Plantation—A First.")

“For a female cat to naturally colonize the United States again from that Sonora population would be really difficult.”

Guyanese vicepresident weigert controversiële jaguarhuid van wand in zijn kantoor te verwijderen

Minister van Toerisme vraagt vicepresident Ramjattan jaguarhuid te verwijderen

De jaguar is Guyana's nationaal dier

23-12-2015  De Surinaamse Krant/Demerara Waves-Caribbean News Desk


Vicepresident Khemraj Ramjattan van Guyana weigert in te gaan op verzoeken van de minister van Toerisme Cathy Hughes en van burgers om een huid van een jaguar, het nationale dier van het land, te verwijderen van de muur van zijn kantoor. Dit bericht vandaag, woensdag 23 december 2015, de Guyanese nieuwswebsite Demerara Waves/Caribbean News Desk.

De afgelopen maanden zijn er tevergeefs verschillende verzoeken geweest en is op social media een campagne gestart om de vicepresident te bewegen de jaguarhuid te verwijderen.

Ramjattan zei tegen de redactie van Demerara Waves, dat hetgeen aan de wand is bevestigd in zijn kantoor voor hem van 'sentimentele' waarde is.

'Dat is mijn persoonlijke jaguarhuid die ik 20 jaar geleden al had in de kamers van mijn privépraktijk en ik ben er sentimenteel aan gehecht geraakt', aldus Ramjattan.

Op de vraag of hij niet vindt dat de huid van de jaguar aan zijn wand niet ongepast is, antwoordde Ramjattan negatief.

'Wat is er ongepast aan? Ik haal de huid niet van de muur. Absoluut niet.'

Mooie momenten: de vrijlating van een inbeslaggenomen ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) en baardsaki (Chiropotes santana)

(Bron foto's: 's Lands Bosbeheer, afd. Natuurbeheer)

Baardsaki of Bisa (Chiropotes santana)
Het vrijlaten van een in beslaggenomen Baardsaki of Bisa (Chiropotes santana).
Posted by LBB afdeling Natuurbeheer on woensdag 28 oktober 2015

Minnesota's 'Lion King' Hunter Can't Kill This Big Brazilian Cat

Minnesota's 'Lion King' Hunter Can't Kill This Big Brazilian Cat

17-08-2015  Forbes.com


When Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer killed Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe this summer, it set off a fire storm against luxurious trophy hunting. In Brazil, home of the jaguar, hunting this big cat is a luxury few can afford. Laws make it next to impossible. Even for those with money to burn and the courage to brave dense jungle and dense heat, going after a jag comes with a price.

In 2010, a group of land owners in Mato Grosso state gave it a whirl. Unfortunate for them, police caught them organizing trophy hunting trips. Eight people were arrested. Somewhat ironically, it was a Brazilian dentist named Eliseu Augusto Sicoli that was the chief organizer of the hunts that cost a mere $1,500 per person, per day. By comparison, Palmer paid around $50,000 in total. Brazil’s Federal Police said that 28 jaguars were trophy hunted that year on the illegal safari program.
“You can’t hunt a jaguar and you surely can never bring a jaguar to the United States or anywhere else as a hunting trophy,” says Ugo Eichler Vercillo, a director at Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment. The only way a jaguar pelt or body part makes it into the U.S. would be through the illegal trafficking of endangered species aboard a private airplane.

A jaguar captures a yellow anaconda in the Pantanal, the largest wetland in the world. I it is home to roughly 3,000 jaguars. The population is considered threatened and hunting them is against the law. (Photo by Douglas Trent/Courtesy of the Pantanal Wildlife Program)

Hunting has been outlawed in Brazil since 1977. Going after glamorous tropical animals like the jaguar is only for scientists that may be allowed to hit it with a tranquilizer gun. In Indian villages, local tribes are permitted to hunt threatened monkeys if they use it for food. Jags are not on the menu.
According to the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, or CITES, Brazilian jaguars are an appendix I endangered species and cannot be marketed. Lions are considered appendix II, meaning there is a legitimate hunting market for them. Palmer was within his legal rights to hunt lions in Zimbabwe.

For years, U.S. hunters have gone to Africa and were allowed to return home with big game trophy kills under the protection of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. But now the Service is considering banning lion hunting by Americans. Disease, habitat destruction and hunting by the locals and big gamers has cut the lion population in half over the last 50 years to around 20,000.

Bringing jaguars into the U.S. is already banned. One reason: the population compared to lions is next to nothing.
Douglas Trent, a well-known American ecologist who has been in and out of Brazil since 1980, estimates the jaguar population to be around six thousand in its two main habitats: the Pantanal and the Amazon.

“Jaguars were really threatened by hunting when there was a commercial market for jaguar furs, but since there is no market for that now it’s led to less illegal hunting in Brazil,” says Trent. “We hope the same can be done with lions so hunting these creatures is outlawed. If not, lions won’t be with us for much longer.”

Trophy hunting is another animal altogether. The hunter isn’t interested in protecting its goats from predators, nor the fur coat. They are interested in big game hunting and want to bring back evidence of the kill. In Cecil the Lion’s case, it was his head.

“We have to be very vigilante of trophy hunting here and any hunting of the jaguar,” says Vercillo. Brazil’s Federal Police, now famous for its busting of a massive corruption scheme inside of state-owned oil giant Petrobras , has its own environmental crimes unit dedicated to the illegal capture and kill of rare – and expensive – Brazilian species.

“There is the possibility that other land owners will offer up their property for adventure-seeking hunters that want a jaguar,” Vercillo says. Hunters send dogs after the cats to chase it up a tree and shoot it from there.
“The federal police caught one safari group; they’ll catch the next one,” Vercillo says. “After this latest news about Zimbabwe, and our 2010 bust of the Mato Grosso hunting tours, I think we will see less of this activity.”

American president Theodore Roosevelt with a juvenile jaguar he killed with a Winchester 450 in Brazil. (File photo)

American president and big game hunter Teddy Roosevelt hunted Brazil’s big cats back in 1913 during a four-month expedition in the Pantanal and Amazon. In his book, the “Through the Brazilian Wilderness”, Roosevelt wrote that it was one of the biggest cats he’d ever shot, noting it was twice the size of a male African leopard and as muscular as a lion.

Brazilians in Mato Grosso have learned to live with the beast, even if it does knock off a pet dog and trim a cattle ranchers head count from time to time. On rare occasions, it will go after humans.

Ranch employee Joao Sousa with his life-saving dog, Brasão. He was rushed by a jaguar in March 2014. (Photo by Douglas Trent for FORBES)

They weigh over 300 pounds, have a bite that can crush a human skull, and – of course – can run fast, have sharp fangs and even sharper claws. This is the Brazilian velociraptor, and the Pantanal is its Jurassic Park.

Joao Sousa, 48, works here. He manages cattle on a large ranch along the Paraguay River and is tasked with making sure the owners’ animals are alive and kicking. He got up close and personal with Brazil’s beast in March 2014.

“I could smell a dead animal up ahead and went to check it out on horseback with my dog,” he says of a five year old beagle named Brasão. “When I got near it, I dismounted and walked over to see that it was just a dead crocodile. When I turned my back to walk back to the horse, that’s when I heard the growling,” he says, adding that he took off his cowboy hat and tried to redirect the cat away from him like he would direct a bull. It didn’t work. The jaguar grabbed him by his arm and only let go when his scream brought on four more dogs to chase it away. Brasão bit the cat’s underbelly and was hit by its claws, incapacitated for two months.

“It was seven in the morning when it happened and I saw him. His arm was wrapped up and bloodied. His face was scratched. He was wiped out,” says Adelia Campos, one of the maids on the ranch. “This has never happened. I hope it never happens again. When he returned from the hospital he was black and blue from his head down to his waist and arm because of the force of that animal.”

Luiz Alex de Silva Lara was struck by a jaguar when returning from a fishing trip with his father to a Paraguay River camp site in 2008. The cat jumped him from behind and broke his neck before dragging him off into the woods. He was 22. Fishermen found him hours later, chunks of flesh removed from his body.

Silva Lara was attacked and killed by a jaguar five years ago, one of the first confirmed killings by a jaguar in Brazil in years. (Photo by Jackie O. Cruz/FORBES)

Cecil the Lion would have been just as mean. The difference between a jaguar and a lion is jaguars in Brazil have a lot more places to hide. It is not easy to find a jaguar, let alone see one when it is nearby.

Sousa said the jaguar that attacked him was hiding in tall grass and probably fled his crocodile kill when he saw him coming. He was protecting his breakfast. Sousa would have been its lunch if not for his dog, Brasão.
“I don’t even know how many stitches I got,” Sousa says, showing me his arm. There is a six inch long crucifix stitch carved into his forearm. “We lose calves all the time here because of jaguars. Forget goats. We used to have 300. I think we’re lucky to have 30,” he says. Does he want revenge on these things?

“It’s better to leave them alone,” he says. “It’s a serious law. It’s not worth going after them. I just know that I don’t want to see it ever again.”

Two large males battle over a female’s attention in the Pantanal. (Photo courtesy of the Pantanal Wildlife Program)

Another jaguar captured in Berbice, Guyana - However, it seems to be an ocelot on the photo.....

Another jaguar captured in Berbice

Another male jaguar was caught at Heathburn Village, East Bank Berbice yesterday

July 25, 2015, The Guyana Chronicle

ANOTHER jaguar, Guyana’s national animal, has been captured in the Ancient County of Berbice. This one, a male, was captured yesterday by cattle and crops farmer Bryan Durant of Pepper Street in Heathburn Village in Region Six.

Durant described the animal as a ‘pest’ that had repeatedly slaughtered his domesticated birds, biting off their heads and removing them from his farm. He told the Guyana Chronicle that he was experiencing great loss in his poultry stocks.

Durant said that after the animal, which preyed at nights, had been spotted, he set up a trap to capture it. The trap, a four-foot contraption made of mesh and divided into two compartments, was secured, and three domesticated birds were used as bait. However, to protect the birds, the walls of their compartment were lined with a smaller gauge of mesh, preventing contact with the predator’s paws. The trap was taken to where the livestock was housed, several yards from the farmer’s home; and at about 02:00hrs, some five hours later, the feline predator was captured.

The animal, weighing approximately eighty pounds, was about four or five feet in length, tail included, and was transported to the New Amsterdam township, several miles away from where it was caught. It was subsequently taken to the Zoological Park in Georgetown.

This is the second jaguar to be caught in East Berbice over the last four days. Last Monday, a male jaguar was fatally shot after it had initially been seen crouching in an inter-lot drain which divides Harkman’s Lane from Pilot Street in the New Amsterdam township.

It was just before 09:00hrs when that ‘beast’ was spotted, and its presence brought the citizenry out in their numbers. Some were naturally fearful, while others were just curious.

Persons used their mobile phones to contact the police and other personnel; but, moments later, Businessman Errol Azar, a licensed firearm owner, arrived on the scene armed with his shotgun. He discharged two shots at the jaguar, and the animal, weighing more than 100 pounds, lay motionless on the street.

Residents and observers, armed with their mobile devices, sought opportunity to have ‘selfies’ with the lifeless animal.

Residents praised the efforts of Azar, while noting that there are many school children in the community, and it would have been heartbreaking if one had been attacked and mauled by the animal.

While no one reported how the animal managed to get into the township of New Amsterdam, it is believed that the jaguar had probably been a pet which may have escaped from its owner’s confinement.

In 2010, a jaguar had been spotted on a ‘paste tree’ at Lot 38 Stanleytown, New Amsterdam, and was subsequently killed; while, in 2008, an ocelot was captured at Maratraite, East Bank Berbice and was taken to the National Zoo.

By Jeune Bailey Vankeric

Berbice businessman shoots dead roaming male jaguar - Guyana

Berbice businessman shoots dead roaming male jaguar – was first spotted crouching in drain in New Amsterdam 

21-07-2015  Guyana Chronicle


A MALE Jaguar  was on Monday fatally shot, after  it was initially seen crouched in an interlocked drain which divides Harkman’s Lane and Pilot Streets, in the New Amsterdam township. It was just before 09:00hrs when the animal was spotted. Its presence  brought citizens out in their  numbers, some fearful, others just curious.

Persons were seen using their mobile phones in an effort to contact the police and other personnel. However, moments later, a  businessman who happens to be a licensed firearm holder, arrived on the scene armed with his shotgun.

As he aimed at the animal, two shots were heard to ring out, and the animal, weighing over 100 pounds, lay motionless on the street.

Residents and observers armed with their mobile devices sought the opportunity to have “selfies” with the lifeless animal.

Residents praised the efforts of businessman, Errol Azar, while noting that there are many school-aged children in the community, and it would have been heartbreaking if one had been attacked and mauled by the animal.

While no one reported how the animal managed to seek refuge in the township, it is believed that the jaguar may have been a pet, and may have escaped from his owner’s confinement.

In 2010, a  jaguar was spotted and subsequently killed at Lot 38 Stanleytown, also in New Amsterdam, while in 2008, an ocelot was captured at Maratraite, East Bank Berbice. The ocelot was taken to the National Zoo.

By Jeune Bailey-VanKeric