Education and compensation are two tools protecting cats
Community relations is a big part of keeping wildlife and human residents on good terms when the wildlife is perceived as harmful or even dangerous, the way big predators like jaguars are.
The program run by Yaguará in the Osa Peninsula area relies on two facets, education projects to convince local people that large predators are not bad or dangerous and need protection and direct compensation for livestock losses.
Aida Bustamante meets with groups of people anywhere they accumulate and records more than 450 chats in the area. She talks to locals at schools, community meetings, and arranges activities for adults and children. At hotels both visitors and staff are targeted. She says the effort must be constant, and that many visiting researchers make little effort to reach local inhabitants. She added:
“You have to understand the reality of these people and show them that it’s possible to coexist with wildlife and not have to choose between their activities and the animals.”
Commercial poaching of prey species and habitat destruction are the main issues at hand to bring these large felines and people into close contact. Deforestation, while still spotty on the Osa and largely controlled, breaks up the cats’ large home ranges and makes it more likely for them to view cattle as food. Most deforestation is by definition for pasture.
Prey species of interest to human hunters are mostly the tepezcuintle, a highly sought-after large rodent. Two species of wild pigs, the collared and white-lipped peccaries, are also eaten. Tapirs are hunted by people but are too large for most cats to tackle.
Subsistence poaching is another issue but is more related to the cost of living in a remote place with a tourist presence, says Ms. Bustamante. Also some hunting is related to resentment of the government authorities and various outsiders, " . . . who prohibit something without offering any alternatives.” Often the positive aspects of conservation like income from tourism does not reach local people.
Poaching for pelts is another risk to the populations of the spotted cats, with commercial outlets in Panamá not understood by the authorities, said Bustamante.
Usually following an incident of lost livestock, the offending animal might be hunted down and shot. Dogs track the cats, and there is still an element of hunting for the thrill of the chase itself in the rural society as well as sport hunters from San José and Panama City.
Compensation for ranchers’ losses is a strategy little tried outside of North America where it is usually related to wolves. But given that even one individual of a rare species is a huge loss from such a small population and gene pool as is present on the Osa Peninsula, if it avoids other needed conservation efforts by keeping the offending animal from being killed then it is highly cost-effective, the association says.
