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Protecting the world's northernmost jaguars
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Northern Jaguar Project is a bi-national organization dedicated to preserving the American jaguar by establishing a self-sufficient, protected wildlife habitat capable of supporting a breeding population of jaguars and their prey species, and sufficient to protect and support other threatened and endangered species that share this habitat.
We promote and support wildlife research and educational programs that reduce conflicts between predators and humans, and we work to instill pride and respect for regional biodiversity among local residents.
Founded in 2003, and officially recognized as as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization in 2004, all funding received by Northern Jaguar Project goes directly to the purchase of habitat and the protection of wildlife in the Northern Jaguar Reserve and the surrounding area.
Northern Jaguar Project Board of Directors
Project Staff and Associates
Project Research, Educational and Outreach Programs
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How We Work
The Northern Jaguar Project recognizes that the only way to get jaguars back into the U.S. is to reach its hand across the border to protect the Aros-Yaqui jaguar population – the world's northernmost population of jaguars and the source of all jaguars attempting to reoccupy their former habitat in the American Southwest.
The Project works to revitalize the Aros-Yaqui jaguar population by maintaining a fully protected nature reserve, by fostering scientific research, and by working in local communities to promote economic and social ventures that support jaguar conservation.
Creating the Northern Jaguar Reserve
The most time-critical need for jaguar recovery is to protect the Aros-Yaqui jaguars from any level of killing.
In 2004, the Northern Jaguar Project, in partnership with one of México's most renowned and respected environmental organizations, Naturalia, A.C., purchased the 10,000-acre Rancho Los Pavos in northeastern Sonora to establish a core sanctuary for the Northern Jaguar Reserve.
In 2008, the Project purchased the 35,000-acre Rancho Zetasora to establish a viable and self-sufficient reserve for the Aros-Yaqui jaguars.
The Northern Jaguar Reserve is the first fully-protected sanctuary for the northernmost population of jaguars, and it lies at the center of the largest area of unfragmented habitat in northern México. The region surrounding the Reserve is one of the most intact and ecologically unique wild areas remaining in North America.
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Building Relationships Locally
Since the purchase of Rancho Los Pavos, the Northern Jaguar Project has furthered its deep commitment to jaguar conservation through scientific research and environmental education in the local community, and it has collaborated with Naturalia to establish an onsite Jaguar Guardian program.
Two Jaguar Guardians reside on the reserve where they monitor wildlife, manage motion-triggered remote cameras that capture wildlife photos, patrol the property to prevent poaching, and build relationships with neighboring ranch owners and vaqueros.
The Project is also working to place motion-triggered cameras in known wildlife corridors on the ranches surrounding or near to the reserve. As the cameras document animals, we reward ranch owners for the presence of living wildlife.
These programs – as well as educational activities that include ranchers and local schoolchildren – will continue to grow and will continue to generate an increased awareness of the values brought by wildlife.
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Our Goals
- Preserve the breeding habitat of the northernmost population of jaguars.
- End hunting and trapping of jaguars throughout the region.
- Manage and rehabilitate the Reserve to maximize the prey base and improve prey ecology to attract and maintain breeding jaguars.
- Protect the numerous rare and sensitive species that live on the Reserve.
- Engage the surrounding ranching community with our conservation programs.
- Identify, establish and maintain safe-passage dispersal corridors allowing the jaguars to return to former breeding habitat along the U.S.–México border, and
- Establish a research station for scientific study of the local ecology and the conservation problems caused by ecological changes, to study bird and bat migration throughout the region, and to study many additional aspects of the area's biological diversity.
The Northern Jaguar Project Logo
In 1958, an archaeologist uncovered a small, carved conch shell pendant, in a group of rock-and-earth mounds in Benton County, Missouri. Missouri is much further north than any location known to be part of the jaguar's former range, which once extended from Central and South America to southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana. The image's identification as a jaguar is clear from the configuration of the body, the nature of the spots on the torso and underbelly, and the form of the head and ears. The protruding flower-like tongue represents communication and is referred to as a "speech scroll." Although the age and origin of the carving are unconfirmed, it shares unmistakable parallels with important religious motifs seen throughout Mesoamerica, where the jaguar was a powerful symbol of the underworld and figured in countless Mayan glyphs. The University of Missouri has generously agreed to allow the Project to use the image as its logo.
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