Research overview: jaguar persecution and isolation in the Atlantic Forest

This overview examines the plight of jaguars in Brazil's highly fragmented Atlantic Forest, where tiny, isolated populations face acute conflict pressure. It synthesises studies of depredation on livestock at forest edges, retaliatory and opportunistic killing, the genetic and demographic peril of small populations, and the role of habitat loss in concentrating jaguars near people. The literature discusses intensive conflict mitigation, husbandry, fencing, monitoring, and the urgency of preventing each conflict-related death given critically low numbers. The survey frames the Atlantic Forest as a worst-case scenario where conflict mortality can tip already imperilled jaguar populations toward local extinction, underscoring the stakes of coexistence in fragmented landscapes.