Comments on: Ocelots and Jaguars Moving North

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:25:35 +0000

Dogu4- That is an interesting observation you made and very true in many areas around the world. In Japan for instance, we are experiencing a veritable exodus of people leaving the countryside in favor of dense, urban areas. Many rural areas have experienced sharp drops in population as younger generations begin to prefer city life. Good news for wildlife in most cases.

I would also add that many areas are experiencing a sort of “corridor” effect. You have areas of privately owned land that interconnect together and sometimes are adjacent even with national parks to form a sort of “corridor” for wildlife to move and migrate through. This allows animals to spread out and move through areas that may have been isolated from them otherwise and allows animals to move through otherwise populated areas. There is a wide range of wildlife that make use of corridors of this sort and animals some areas heavily rely on these to move from place to place.

It would not be entirely far fetched for animals with large ranges such as big cats, to wander through these corridors and wind up far from where they are expected to be.

By: Tarzanboyy

Tarzanboyy — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 05:43:28 +0000

That’s great news. I hope that someday there will be a breeding population of jaguars in the southwest again.

By: jerrywayne

jerrywayne — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:57:28 +0000

On the first floor of the Museum of Natural History at Dallas’ Fair Park, there are wonderful displays of animals (taxidermied) in replica natural habitats. The mammals represented include a grizzly, a jaguar, a wolf and elk.

Amazingly, all of the animals on the first floor, including the ones mentioned, were killed, one time or another, in the state of Texas. Amazing because grizzlies, jaguars, wolves and elks are no longer native to the Lone Star state.

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:31:37 +0000

Hmmm…interesting. I would say that the ‘known ranges’ of jaguars, ocelots and other south/central american cats, and other creatures for that matter, is based on a relatively small slice of relatively recent history.
Furthermore, our understanding of what the natural world of the Americas looked like in pre-columbian times is frequently and increasingly found to be filled with preconceived notions having more to do with the closely held myth that aside from a few retiring tribes of hunter gatherers, the new world was basically and conveniently un-occupied. Archaeology is revealing that the Americas were far more populated with well organized and mostly sedentary populations who had long ago reduced the original wild inventory and that the vast herds, flocks, and aggregations of wild game was at least partly the result of being no-longer constrained by the numerous indigenous populatons who had vanished as a result of contact with european diseases.
Now, for the first time in a long time, people no longer really live in small villages surrounded by nature which they use for food, but instead we congregate in dense urban landscapes and when we travel into nature it’s along well established routes, roads and highways. Our populatons of wild animals are returning, including prey animals, and consequently their natural predators.

By: Thylacine Escapade

Thylacine Escapade — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:17:28 +0000

Killing Macho B was a bad choice although he was probably very aged. If they didn’t kill him and let nature take its course, he would have lived longer and have been living proof, which i certainly think is better than Non-living proof!