More than one year ago, the headless corpse of a jaguar was discovered inside garbage dump in Belize. The incident was one of series of related killings that sparked outrage among the residents.
It also inspired authorities, private citizens and companies to put together an $8,000 reward to anyone who can provide information to whoever is the culprit of the heinous crime.
The incident indicated the rise of jaguar poaching and killing across the species' range between Mexico and Argentina, as reported by The New York Times.
Dwindling species
An independent wildlife crime specialist, Pauline Verheji, who has conducted an investigation looking into details of the jaguar trade, said that she has long suspected that the deeds went unnoticed because authorities were complacent and did not pay attention.
Verheji had, in recent years, investigated the trades in Suriname and Bolivia and said most, if not all, Latin American countries had zero priority in tackling wildlife crime until recently.
The specialist, along with several others, had cautioned that jaguar trading seemed to be getting more traction at a time when the animals were at the brink of extinction. The creatures' small numbers is a result of losing their habitat and people killing them as revenge for preying on livestock.
According to National Geographic, a new study that researchers published on June 2 in the Conservation Biology journal, found that between 2012 and 2018 in the regions of Central and South America, poachers have killed more than 800 jaguars to smuggle their teeth, skins, and skulls to China. The statistics show only the ones that law enforcement was able to intercept and report to the media.
The lead author of the study, Thais Moriarty, who is a PhD. candidate at Oxford Brookes University in England said that they knew the illegal poaching existed, but they did not realise its growth. "It really concerns us," he added.
Morcatty's team gathered and studied several reports of jaguar, puma, and ocelots, that poachers smuggled to China to try and understand what drove the illegal activities.
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Hidden links
The study's findings have confirmed what conservationists have speculated: the smuggling is linked to Chinese workers that support megaprojects, including new roads and dams.
Co-author of the study, Vincent Nijman, said that the findings help us learn that the patterns previously seen in Asia and Africa have made their way to South America. He added that if there were a demand, poachers would supply it, even if it was on the other side of the world.
In 2003, a Chinese man who worked at a supermarket found in Paramaribo, Suriname, and approached a uniformed member of the country's forestry service and asked the officer if he could bring him a jaguar.
Verheji said that her contact told the man that killing jaguars was illegal. The officer told Verheji that he was surprised the man was comfortable in asking for unlawful activity from a government official.
Vice president of international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, Susan Lieberman, said that Chinese companies should educate their workers of the illegality of trading jaguar parts and take measures to avoid their workers' involvement in wildlife crimes.
"It's important to get ahead of the curve by working with Chinese companies and not just wait for a crisis," said Lieberman. She added that the issue could be prevented without fighting against an adversary.
