A rare black jaguar has arrived at Chester Zoo as part of a special programme to protect this 'near threatened' species.
Inka, a "strikingly beautiful, bold and confident" two-year-old jaguar, has come from The Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent to make her new home at the zoo. Zoo bosses say her arrival has been "carefully orchestrated" as they hope she and the zoo's resident male jaguar, Napo will be a key part of conservation efforts to protect this species, whose numbers have declined in the wild.
Carnivore experts at the zoo say Inka’s arrival will help shine a light on this “remarkable” species and support a European-wide programme working to ensure a genetically healthy insurance population of jaguars within the continent’s major conservation zoos.
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Jaguars, which are native to the Americas, are listed as near threatened by the world’s leading authority on the state of nature, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with scientists believing they may become vulnerable to extinction in the near future.
Conservationists warn the jaguar is facing an uncertain future, facing a number of threats including habitat loss, illegal hunting and conflict with humans causing numbers in the wild to decline.
Commenting on how Inka was settling into her new home at the zoo, Dave Hall, team manager of Carnivores at Chester Zoo, said: "Inka is a strikingly beautiful, bold and confident young jaguar and she’s quickly taken to her new surroundings. The union between her and Napo, the resident male here in Chester, has been carefully orchestrated by carnivore experts from here and The Big Cat Sanctuary and the coordinators of a programme that’s working in partnership to ensure a genetically viable population of jaguars across Europe.
"We hope the two of them will go to form a strong and meaningful bond, and the early signs are positive. Like Napo, Inka is a wonderful ambassador for her species.
"Jaguars are remarkable animals and the two of them together will help us to raise more much-needed awareness of the survival challenges that they face in the wild, the work that’s already being done by zoos, our partners and the local conservationists and communities to protect the ecosystems that jaguars live in, and help us to inspire further action for their conservation."
And explaining just why this conservation programme is so important, Paul Bamford, regional field programmes manager for the Americas at Chester Zoo, added: "Deforestation and habitat fragmentation are reducing jaguar populations across their range. According to the IUCN, close to 70 per cent of deforestation in Latin America is driven by industrial agriculture, primarily for soy, oil palm and cattle production.
"Many of these products are exported to countries such as the UK, and therefore, our shopping habits can have a significant impact on global biodiversity loss. In our role as consumers, we are unwittingly contributing to the destruction of nature on our planet.
"At Chester Zoo we are working to influence policy, both in the UK and internationally, to address this. We are supporting efforts to improve production standards and legislation so that deforestation is minimised, or eliminated for good, and wildlife can live safely alongside productive areas.
"The goal is to create a deforestation-free economy, in which countries are able to meet their development needs sustainably. If we can break the link between habitat loss and production, then we have the opportunity secure a future for people and wildlife."
Jaguar facts
- Jaguars are the largest big cat found in the Americas, and are occasionally found in the US too, in Arizona and New Mexico
- While jaguars mainly hunt on the ground, they will also climb trees to pounce on their prey
- Their limbs are short and thick set, making them particularly adept at swimming and climbing
- They have the most powerful bite of all the big cats
- Their incredibly powerful jaws, combined with their ability to swim and climb, gives them a varied diet. As predators they will tackle pretty much anything, with over 85 prey species identified, including mammals, reptiles and birds, recorded in their diet across their geographic range. Large mammals with hooves are their favourite but they are opportunistic hunters and will even tackle large caiman
- Their coats can look very different. They can look black all over or be yellow with black spots due to a natural genetic mutation. There is no such species as a black panther; this is just a cat with a dark colour genetic mutation known as melanism
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