UC discovers new way of tracking jaguars

How do you follow a predator so elusive that its nickname is “shadow cat”?

To track secretive jaguars in the forested mountains of Belize, the University of Cincinnati turned to geology and poop.

Brooke Crowley, a UC associate professor of geology and anthropology, can trace the wanderings of animals using isotopes of strontium found in their bones or the bones of animals they have eaten. This method works even with long-dead animals such as ancient mammoths.

Now she and her research partners are applying the technique to jaguar poop, or scat, found in the geologically diverse Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve in Belize. Claudia Wultsch, a wildlife biologist from the American Museum of Natural History and City University of New York, and Marcella Kelly, a professor of wildlife conservation at Virginia Tech, co-authored the study. Both have studied jaguars in Belize for more than a decade.

The research found that jaguar scat provides isotopic signatures similar to those found in the undigested bones of prey to track the big cat’s movements across its varied landscape. Researchers examined strontium, carbon and nitrogen isotopes to identify the habitat and geology of prey upon which the jaguars were feeding.

The study demonstrates UC's commitment to research as outlined in its strategic direction called Next Lives Here.

Jaguars are the largest big cat in the Western Hemisphere. Like leopards, they have a camouflaged coat with a unique pattern of spots and rosettes. They are opportunistic hunters, catching small birds and rodents or far bigger prey such as caimans, a type of crocodile.

The cats have disappeared from more than 40 percent of their historic range and are red-listed as near-threatened with extinction by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They are wide-ranging and wary, which makes them difficult to study in the wild.

“You have to be extremely lucky to see one in the wild,” Wultsch said.

Crowley has never seen a jaguar but did hear one calling one night in the rainforest on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. Jaguars make a loud grunting call when they’re communicating with other jaguars.

“I thought it was kind of cool, but I wasn’t inclined to go check it out,” she said.

In this part of Central America, the jaguar’s stronghold is la Selva Maya, or the Mayan Forest, which covers parts of Belize, northern Guatemala and southeastern Mexico. 

“It represents one of the largest blocks of contiguous forest left in Mesoamerica and is critical for jaguar conservation,” Wultsch said.

Even this region has become increasingly fragmented by development over the last 50 years.

“One of the main objectives of our research is to assess how jaguars and other wild cats are doing,” Wultsch said.

Researchers have studied jaguars without capturing or handling the animals by setting up remote camera traps and collecting their scat. But researchers said isotopic profiling expands the tool box of noninvasive wildlife survey methods, offering a wealth of information from a single scat sample.

The UC study also suggested that jaguars in the reserve were not eating grazing animals such as livestock from area farms.

“Being able to document that isn’t happening is reassuring. They’re not competing for resources with people in the area,” UC’s Crowley said.

Featured image at top: A jaguar stares back at a camera trap in Belize. Photo/Marcella Kelly/Virginia Tech Jaguar Project