Among the spindly saline roots of the mangrove trees that line western Mexico’s coast, the jaguar is the ecosystem’s apex predator. Yet despite being at the top of the food chain, its existence is threatened by the abundance of another, much smaller species: the whiteleg shrimp. Aquaculture of whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei), or Pacific white shrimp, has boomed along Mexico’s Pacific coast in the last couple of decades, in the process clearing swaths of mangrove forests and jeopardizing crucial habitats for jaguars (Panthera onca) in the western states of Sinaloa, Sonora and Nayarit., “With shrimp farms in Mexico, you see the destruction of the jaguars’ habitat,” Alfredo Quarto, co-founder of Mangroves Action Project, a conservation NGO, tells Mongabay. “But also of fish, crabs and other animals and birds. It’s very important to have a highly biodiverse supportive habitat.” A jaguar walks at night along the banks of the Santiago River in the mangroves of Nayarit. Image courtesy of Victor Hugo Luja at Jaguares Sin Protección Habitat loss and poaching have shrunk jaguars’ distribution across Mexico by 54%, with about 4,000 to 5,000 of the big cats left in the wild today. In Nayarit, a 2022 study of a nearly 6,300-hectare (15,500-acre) wildlife corridor considered important for jaguar conservation found mangrove coverage there decreased from 35% to 26%, while land used for agriculture and aquaculture rose from 38% to 50% over a 20-year period. Amid the habitat loss, a small reserve in Nayarit offers a haven for jaguars. La Papalota was…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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