Our Footprint | Black Jaguar

Jaguar population		Jaguar habitat

The human footprint has taken its toll on jaguar numbers! From the estimated 350.000 jaguars in the 1950's, there are only 10.000 left! of which only an estimated 600 black jaguars! That is just 3% left! In the 60's and 70's, over 15.000 jaguars per year were hunted and killed. Reason: mankind needed to convert forest land for agricultural land. In addtion they were killed for their beautiful fur. Though hunting jaguars is officially illegal nowadays, the killing of jaguars continues! Farmers neglect the law and hire professional jaguar hunters when their cattle is attacked. As top predators, jaguars are essential in order to sustain balanced ecosystems.		The human footprint has taken its toll on jaguar habitat! In the 1950's, jaguar habitat covered 21 million km2. In 2010, jaguar habitat has shrunk to 7 million km2. That is just 35% left! Even in the seventies, jaguars' habitat ranged from California in the USA all the way to Argentina. In just 30 years, over 60% of all rainforest and wildlife has been erased! Did you know that each year a piece of the Amazon rainforest 500 times the size of Manhattan Island is being destroyed? This massive deforestation demolishes the ecosystem and extinguishes all wildlife such as the already rare black jaguar! The Amazon rainforest has been described as the "lungs of our planet" because it provides the essential service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. It is estimated that more than 20 percent of Earth's oxygen is produced in this ecosystem of the jaguar.