Big Cat Bone Trade — One More Threat to Jaguars
Jaguars are one of the big cat species native to North America. They have historically ranged from the southwestern U.S., through Central America and into South America as far south as Argentina. However, the estimated 15,000 jaguars left in the wild have been pushed out of more than fifty percent of their range, which is why protecting habitat corridors is so important. Today, there is still habitat in the U.S. and just this year, 760,000 acres were upheld as critical habitat for jaguar in the Southwest. Despite this habitat, the jaguar’s migration pathways are severely limited by the number of openings in the border between the U.S. and Mexico. However, migration difficulty is not the biggest problem for the species. The increased trade of jaguar bones and teeth has posed a significant threat to the species, especially the populations in South America.
Wildlife trafficking is not a new problem in Latin America. Birds, turtles and many other phyla have been trafficked out of Latin American countries and traded throughout the world. This threat against the jaguar has grown within the past year. Jaguar skins have been part of the wildlife trafficking trade before, but the added demand from China for teeth and bones is taking an even greater toll on the imperiled species. In one Peruvian village, locals will shoot and sell jaguar parts, but the person who comes from the Chinese corporation nearby will leave the skins and only buy the teeth. Jaguar teeth and bones are used as trinkets and as a substitute for tiger teeth and bones in traditional medicine as a result of the scarce number of tigers found in China.
In Bolivia’s Madidi National Park, the increase in nearby Chinese development and infrastructure deals creates a market for tiger bone substitutes. Local poachers have answered the call of these investors to bring them jaguar skulls and teeth, with a single jaguar tooth fetching prices up to $200 USD. Law enforcement officers confiscate hundreds of jaguar teeth destined for China, but the demand keeps the trade alive.
These bones may have final destinations in traditional Asian medicine, but the issue of trading bones from big cats was also raised when South Africa proposed allowing the trade of captive-bred lion bones earlier this year. These lion bones would also be used to feed the growing market for big cat bones in Asia and to fill the void being left by the decrease in available tiger parts. The increase in tiger bone substitutes may put several other species at risk. A legal trade in captive-bred lion bones will not fully satisfy the demand for big cat bones and it will leave other species like leopards and jaguars to be poached to meet the demand of the market. A more effective solution would be to end the market for bones from big cats by reducing the demand for them at a local level.
Jaguars face a multitude of threats: sprawl-induced habitat loss, migration disruption from a proposed full-scale border wall and population depletion from illegal trade to satisfy the demand for tiger bone substitutes in China. As a CITES Appendix I species and a listed species under the Endangered Species Act, jaguars are supposed to be afforded a great deal of protection. However, lack of funding and other obstacles toward trafficking enforcement have made it challenging to stop the illegal wildlife trafficking in Latin America. Although the U.S. is not the destination market for these jaguar parts, the U.S. is a common route for illegal wildlife products trafficked out of Latin America. Adding to the numbers of enforcement officers in national parks like Madidi and at entry points to the U.S. overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would result in more effective enforcement of the existing legal protections for jaguars, as would increasing funding for enforcement agencies throughout the region. Improving the prosecution of criminals wherever they are caught trafficking wildlife and their parts would dissuade more of these potential poachers. To assure a future for this magnificent big cat, the trade of jaguar parts and products needs to be stopped.
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