Research overview: the Jaguar Corridor Initiative

The Jaguar Corridor Initiative is a range-wide effort to maintain a connected network of habitat allowing jaguars to move between core populations from Mexico to Argentina. This overview surveys research and implementation behind the initiative, which builds on connectivity modelling to identify and protect the corridors linking jaguar strongholds. Studies assess corridor functionality on the ground, working with governments and landowners to keep linkages open through working landscapes such as ranches and farmland where jaguars must coexist with people. Researchers examine threats including deforestation, infrastructure, and conflict with cattle ranchers along corridors. The overview frames the initiative as one of the most ambitious continental connectivity programs for any species, treating the jaguar as a single connected metapopulation. It matters because it operationalizes corridor science at hemispheric scale, testing whether a wide-ranging predator can be kept genetically and demographically connected across an entire range spanning many nations.