Save the jaguar.A forest preserve of 170 square miles in Belize has been closed to hunting and farming and opened to jaguar preservation. Forty to 50 jaguars now roam the preserve, which is naturally one of the larges jaguar ranges in Central America Central America, narrow, southernmost region (c.202,200 sq mi/523,698 sq km) of North America, linked to South America at Colombia. It separates the Caribbean from the Pacific. . The jaguar is the biggest spotted cat in the world and the third largest of all felines. An adult can weigh 300 pounds. These animals require a large jungle territory to catch adequate prey, but the natural jaguar ranges are rapidly dwindling dwin·dle v. dwin·dled, dwin·dling, dwin·dles v.intr. To become gradually less until little remains. v.tr. To cause to dwindle. See Synonyms at decrease. , primarily becase of clearcut farming. The reserve, to be called the Cockscomb cockscomb: see amaranth. Basin Forest Reserve, was established through the cooperation of Wildlife Conservation International (a division of the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Zoological Society), the Belize government and the Belize Audubon Society. The Cockscombe Basin includes a major watershed, so preservation of the rain forest there is important for preventing erosion and floods, whose damage could even extend, by silting, to offshore coral reefs. |
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