Matthew Hyde

A common intervention to increase tolerance for carnivores is the prevention of livestock losses under the premise that ranchers will better tolerate carnivores if livestock loss is reduced or eliminated. We conducted interview‐assisted surveys in four communities in the Colombian Llanos to characterize human–jaguar ( Panthera onca ) conflict, identify predictors of tolerance (i.e., intention to kill jaguars after a livestock loss), and evaluate the impact of a fencing intervention to increase tolerance. The majority of respondents reported moderate to severe livestock losses pre‐ and post‐intervention. Attitudes and normative support in favor of killing jaguars after a livestock depredation were pervasive. The social psychological variables from theory of planned behavior were stronger predictors of intention to kill jaguars than severity of past losses. The intervention did not increase tolerance, likely because self‐selection bias led to a treatment group that was already tolerant pre‐intervention. Our results suggest that an approach focused only on reducing depredations is unlikely to reduce jaguar killings, as livestock losses are not the only driver. The pervasiveness of livestock losses and support for killing jaguars following a depredation demonstrate a need to reduce livelihood impacts and consider alternative, community‐led approaches to conflict mitigation in the area.

Multi‐use areas provide habitat to jaguars ( Panthera onca ), yet their population trends remain understudied in these areas. We used camera trapping to estimate jaguar densities using spatially explicit capture‐recapture in Hato La Aurora, a private reserve and cattle ranch in the Colombian Llanos and compared estimates with 2014 and 2022 studies. We then calculated land cover change in and around Hato La Aurora over 10 years with buffers at 10, 25, and 50 km to evaluate available habitat for jaguars. We estimated 2.41 ± 0.75 individuals/100 km ² , which is moderately higher than in 2014 and lower than in 2022, likely due to different camera placement. Habitat inside La Aurora remained steady with 10% change of disturbed cover whereas disturbed cover outside increased by 39%–54% depending on the buffer. Our study demonstrates the conservation value of productive private reserves for jaguars, but comprehensive land use policies and coexistence strategies are needed for long‐term jaguar persistence.

Finding methods to reduce livestock depredations is important for conserving recovering populations of large carnivores and mitigating impacts on ranching livelihoods. This is especially true for ensuring the successful reintroductions of endangered carnivores, such as the Mexican wolf ( Canis lupus baileyi ), an endangered subspecies of gray wolf being reintroduced to their native range in the Southwestern United States and Mexico. Diversionary feeding—providing food caches to divert predators away from preying on livestock—is a strategy to reduce depredations by Mexican wolves but has not been evaluated for its effectiveness. We used data from the Mexican wolf recovery program from 2014 to 2021 in a Bayesian hierarchical model to evaluate whether diversionary feeding reduced livestock depredations by wolf packs and what factors correlated with depredations. Our model accounted for the non‐detection of depredation events, given that some depredations are unencountered or unreported on extensive rangelands. We found that diversionary feeding reduced depredations by an average of 0.78 depredations (43.9%) per pack in the 3 months after application. Prey density was negatively correlated to depredations before diversionary feeding. Minimum pack size and annual livestock density were negatively correlated with depredations after diversionary feeding, while prey density was positively correlated. We estimated a mean of 63% ± 5.4% of depredations were detected with high variation between packs (40.4% ± 7.9% – 74.0% ± 5.3%). Because detections were only two‐thirds of the model‐estimated depredations in our study, our model could improve compensation and targeting of nonlethal tools to mitigate the financial burden of co‐occurrence with wolves by elucidating factors that lead to lower detection and adjusting payment multipliers. Our results indicate diversionary feeding can reduce depredations by wolves on large landscapes in the Western United States but is not a panacea for conflict reduction.

It is well documented that Andean bears (Tremarctos ornatus) feed extensively on plants and carrion, but their hunting habits remain understudied. Better understanding and documentation of Andean bear feeding ecology can improve conservation efforts for this vulnerable species. Here, we report an observation of an Andean bear hunting and capturing a wild guinea pig (Cavia aperea) in Chingaza National Natural Park, in Cundinamarca, Colombia. The sighting occurred in January 2023 by a team of conservationists, and we provided photographic evidence and details of the encounter. Our observation suggests that Andean bears are capable hunters of small rodents, indicating that hunting may play a more important role in the ecology of Andean bears than previously appreciated and highlighting the need for a better understanding of this feeding behaviour.

La prevención y mitigación de los conflictos con el hombre son prioritarias para la conservación de los grandes carnívoros. La caza por venganza tras la depredación del ganado es una de las principales amenazas para el jaguar (Panthera onca) y el puma (Puma concolor) en América. Se consultaron registros de informes gubernamentales, agencias de recursos naturales, medios de comunicación y observaciones de campo para caracterizar el conflicto entre humanos y grandes felinos en el Parque Nacional Natural Paramillo de Colombia. Entre 2007 y 2022, se reportaron 37 eventos de depredación de grandes felinos sobre perros domésticos y ganado, de los cuales el 84 % correspondió a ataques de jaguares. Se encontró que los animales más depredados, en orden de ataques, fueron cerdos, perros, ovejas y vacas. Los excesos de matanza (es decir, > 1 animal atacado en un evento de depredación) representaron el 61 % de todos los eventos de depredación. Los principales obstáculos para el manejo son la insuficiencia de personal para verificar la depredación y la falta de protocolos operativos claros. Finalmente, se identifican estrategias para reducir el riesgo de depredación y mejorar la gestión actual.

The increasing frequency and severity of human‐caused fires likely have deleterious effects on species distribution and persistence. In 2020, megafires in the Brazilian Pantanal burned 43% of the biome's unburned area and resulted in mass mortality of wildlife. We investigated changes in habitat use or occupancy for an assemblage of eight mammal species in Serra do Amolar, Brazil, following the 2020 fires using a pre‐ and post‐fire camera trap dataset. Additionally, we estimated the density for two naturally marked species, jaguars Panthera onca and ocelots Leopardus pardalis. Of the eight species, six (ocelots, collared peccaries Dicotyles tajacu, giant armadillos Priodontes maximus, Azara's agouti Dasyprocta azarae, red brocket deer Mazama americana, and tapirs Tapirus terrestris) had declining occupancy following fires, and one had stable habitat use (pumas Puma concolor). Giant armadillo experienced the most precipitous decline in occupancy from 0.431 ± 0.171 to 0.077 ± 0.044 after the fires. Jaguars were the only species with increasing habitat use, from 0.393 ± 0.127 to 0.753 ± 0.085. Jaguar density remained stable across years (2.8 ± 1.3, 3.7 ± 1.3, 2.6 ± 0.85/100 km²), while ocelot density increased from 13.9 ± 3.2 to 16.1 ± 5.2/100 km². However, the low number of both jaguars and ocelots recaptured after the fire period suggests that immigration may have sustained the population. Our results indicate that the megafires will have significant consequences for species occupancy and fitness in fire‐affected areas. The scale of megafires may inhibit successful recolonization, thus wider studies are needed to investigate population trends.

Understanding large carnivore demography on human-dominated lands is a priority to inform conservation strategies, yet few studies examine long-term trends. Jaguars (Panthera onca) are one such species whose population trends and survival rates remain unknown across working lands. We integrated nine years of camera trap data and tourist photos to estimate jaguar density, survival, abundance, and probability of tourist sightings on a working ranch and tourism destination in Colombia. We found that abundance increased from five individuals in 2014 to 28 in 2022, and density increased from 1.88 ± 0.87 per 100 km²in 2014 to 3.80 ± 1.08 jaguars per 100 km²in 2022. The probability of a tourist viewing a jaguar increased from 0% in 2014 to 40% in 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic. Our results are the first robust estimates of jaguar survival and abundance on working lands. Our findings highlight the importance of productive lands for jaguar conservation and suggest that a tourism destination and working ranch can host an abundant population of jaguars when accompanied by conservation agreements and conflict interventions. Our analytical model that combines conventional data collection with tourist sightings can be applied to other species that are observed during tourism activities.Entender los patrones demográficos de los grandes carnívoros al interior de paisajes antrópicos es fundamental para el diseño de estrategias de conservación efectivas. En el Neotrópico, el jaguar (Panthera onca) es una de estas especies cuyas tendencias poblacionales y tasas de supervivencia en paisajes productivos son desconocidas. Para entender mejor estas dinámicas, integramos nueve años de fototrampeo junto a fotos de turistas para estimar la densidad, supervivencia, abundancia y probabilidad de avistamiento de esta especie en una finca ganadera y destino turístico en Colombia. Entre 2014 y 2022 encontramos que la abundancia incrementó de cinco a 28 individuos y la densidad de 1.88 ± 0.87 jaguares/ 100 km²a 3.80 ± 1.08 jaguares/ 100 km². La probabilidad de avistamiento por turistas aumentó de 0% en 2014 a 40% en 2020 antes de la pandemia del Covid-19. Nuestros resultados presentan las primeras estimaciones robustas de abundancia y supervivencia de este felino en paisajes antrópicos dónde el manejo de sistemas productivos combinados con turismo e intervenciones para la mitigación del conflicto puede albergar poblaciones abundantes de jaguares, demostrando su importancia para la conservación de esta especie. Nuestro modelo, al combinar datos convencionales con avistamientos, podría ser aplicado a otras especies observadas durante actividades turísticas.

Peru contains the second largest surface area of the Amazon biome. The Peruvian Amazon is threatened by logging, illegal crops, mining, and agricultural expansion. While a number of national parks exist in the Amazon region, privately managed areas like Conservation Concessions can be an attractive complement to existing parks. We compare medium and large mammal communities in a Conservation Concession in Ucayali with the nearby Parque Nacional Sierra del Divisor National Park and describe species relative abundance and richness of both protected areas. Results suggest that Conservation Concessions can harbour an important diversity of mammal species and could provide connections to larger protected areas. However, they are no substitutes for large protected areas, especially for sensitive and threatened species. Further research is needed to demonstrate their complementarity and improve landscape-level connectivity between conservation models.

Across much of the Western United States, recovery of large carnivore populations is creating new challenges for livestock producers. Reducing the risks of sharing the landscape with recovering wildlife populations is critical to private working lands, which play an vital role in securing future energy, water, food, and fiber for an ever-expanding human population. Fencing is an important mitigation practice that many ranchers, land managers, and conservationists implement to reduce carnivore-livestock conflict. While fencing strategies have been reviewed in the literature, research seldom incorporates knowledge from the people who utilize fencing the most (i.e., livestock producers). Incorporating producers and practitioners early in the process of producing scientific knowledge is proving to be a critical endeavor for enhancing knowledge exchange, better evaluation of the practice, and more realistic understanding of the costs and benefits. Here, we describe how our multidisciplinary effort of co-producing knowledge informs understanding of the effectiveness of various fencing designs and more importantly provides a better mechanism for transferring this knowledge between producers, researchers, and land managers. We explain the process underway and demonstrate that incorporating producers and practitioners from the onset allows research priorities and expected outcomes to be set collaboratively, gives transparency to the agricultural community of the research process, provides a critical lens to evaluate efficacy and functionality, and will inform the practicality of fencing as a conflict prevention tool. We discuss opportunities and challenges of this co-production process and how it can be applied to other realms of fencing and conflict prevention strategies.

Carbon credits through Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) offer a unique opportunity to positively impact habitat and biodiversity conservation. Few financial tools are available to jaguar conservationists to conserve forest habitats; thus carbon credits are of great interest. In order to examine the opportunities and challenges of integrating conservation impact for jaguars and biodiversity into carbon credits, we review 44 REDD+ projects in Latin America certified by Verified Carbon Standard + Climate, Community and Biodiversity located within jaguar distribution, registered between 2011 and 2020. Of the 44, only eleven of those projects have jaguars as conservation targets, and seven of those eleven have a coherent plan for monitoring jaguar populations. While REDD+ projects promote forest cover and biomass conservation, tradeoffs based on limited financial resources at the onset and throughout the project may lead to limited monitoring capabilities and threat reduction, thus rendering co‐benefit reporting deficient or absent. We suggest more rigorous baseline data requirements of fauna populations, greater collaboration between project developers, researchers and local communities to monitor wildlife and address human‐jaguar conflicts, and clear requirements from national level REDD+ initiatives to ensure the conservation of a forest keystone species, the Americas’ largest felid.