Jaguar makes epic 2100-kilometre journey across the Amazon
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- Gaspar, an 8-year-old male jaguar collared on 11 November 2024, traveled 2122 km (as the crow flies) southward from the Araguaia river into the inland Cerrado — more than 20 times the previous tagged-jaguar dispersal record of 60 to 100 km
- Jon Morant of University College Dublin and his team tracked Gaspar as part of an ongoing project (started in 1999) studying the Araguaia river as a potential wildlife corridor connecting the Cerrado grasslands with the Amazon rainforest
- The jaguar crossed highways, farms, ranches and other heavily modified human landscapes, exposing him to poaching and retaliatory killing by ranchers protecting livestock, according to Morant
- José García-Herrera of the Spanish National Research Council called it "especially intriguing" that Gaspar never established a territory despite more than a year of continuous movement through areas that were at least partially suitable jaguar habitat
- Gaspar's collar stopped transmitting in late November 2025; Morant says he may have been shot or poisoned, or the collar may simply have failed — meaning the jaguar could still be moving across Brazil
- The findings, published in Ecology (DOI: 10.1002/ecy.70441), suggest protected-area frameworks may need rethinking to account for jaguars capable of such extreme long-distance movements
Why it matters: Documenting a jaguar traveling more than 20 times the previous recorded dispersal distance means conservation planners can no longer assume reserves protect individual cats — corridor-based designs spanning the Araguaia-to-Cerrado region may now be necessary. Every kilometer a wide-ranging jaguar spends outside forest cover raises mortality risk from ranchers who kill them to defend livestock.
