Home range of a male jaguar spatially associated with the landfill of the city of Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Abstract

Abstract Understanding how jaguars (Panthera onca) adapt to disturbed landscapes, especially urbanized areas, can help us prevent adverse situations, thus reducing conflict, and perhaps even achieve coexistence with these predators. Playa del Carmen, a city located in the middle of a natural corridor linking two jaguar conservation units (JCUs; Sian Ka’an and Yum Balam), is facing intense pressure from tourism-related city growth. From January 2013 to March 2014, we tracked an adult male jaguar using a satellite collar and found that the presence of the Playa del Carmen landfill had a clear influence on a male jaguar’s home range and movements. We observed that this particular jaguar had the smallest seasonal home range and core areas reported in the literature (particularly during the dry season in 2013, where the home range was only 16.22 km2 and the core area was 2.5 km2) and also that the seasonal core areas overlapped with the area covered by the landfill (with a number of important locations within the landfill). Our results showed that male jaguars are surviving in areas previously not considered as jaguar habitat and are taking advantage of the human resources within. We hope that these results encourage more jaguar studies to be carried out in areas disturbed by human activities.