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Context: Land use change, habitat loss and fragmentation are the major threats to jaguar conservation in Latin America. Here, we integrate the information of jaguar's distribution to identify priority areas for its conservation. Objective: We evaluated the effect of topographic, anthropogenic and landscape variables on habitat suitability to evaluate potential core areas and biological corridors for jaguar conservation across Mexico. Methods: We compiled a database of jaguar occurrence records, geospatial data-set of all Natural Protected Areas and using the expert criterion of the Mexican jaguar specialists to define Jaguar Geographic Regions; i.e. well-defined large units with similar ecological characteristics across the geographic range of jaguars in Mexico. We then conducted analyses of ecological niche models to identify Jaguar Conservation Units; i.e. core units with jaguar populations of 15 or more individuals. We used Least Cost Path and Circuit Theory analyses to define the Biological Corridors; i.e. regions with enough habitat to allow for jaguar dispersal along their geographic range, but putting emphasis in connecting Jaguar Conservation Units. Results: We identified 5 Jaguar Geographic Regions (JGRs), 10 Jaguar Conservation Units (JCUs), and 13 Biological Corridors to maintain the connectivity of jaguar's populations across their whole geographic range in Mexico. Our results showed that JGRs cover 25% of the country but only 21% of those regions are currently protected in nature reserves. So, our study illustrates the importance of the creation of new protected areas or the implementation of other schemes of conservation to protect larger extensions of the jaguars' habitat in Mexico. It also indicates that despite the reduction of jaguar range in Mexico, there are still relatively large and well conserved areas capable of maintaining jaguar populations. Conclusions: Our results are a fundamental tool to guide the conservation and management of jaguars in Mexico. Our findings indicate that public jaguar conservation policy to protect the remaining jaguar habitat in Mexico should include the following actions: i) Strengthen established protected areas, ii) Create new protected areas, iii) Implement sustainable development programs to stimulate land owners to protect their lands, and iv) Develop mitigation measures for infrastructure. Although the window of opportunity is closing, our results indicate that there is still time to save jaguars and the plethora of species that share their habitat in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The jaguar (Panthera onca) is one of the most threatened carnivores in the Americas. Despite a long history of research on this charismatic species, to date there have been few systematic efforts to assess its population size and status in most countries across its distribution range. We present here the results of the two National Jaguar Surveys for Mexico, the first national censuses in any country within the species distribution. We estimated jaguar densities from field data collected at 13 localities in 2008–2010 (2010 hereafter) and 11 localities in 2016–2018 (2018 hereafter). We used the 2010 census results as the basis to develop a National Jaguar Conservation Strategy that identified critical issues for jaguar conservation in Mexico. We worked with the Mexican government to implement the conservation strategy and then evaluated its effectivity. To compare the 2010 and 2018 results, we estimated the amount of jaguar-suitable habitat in the entire country based on an ecological niche model for both periods. Suitable jaguar habitat covered ~267,063 km2 (13.9% of the country's territory) in 2010 and ~ 288,890 km2 (~14.8% of the country's territory) in 2018. Using the most conservative density values for each priority region, we estimated jaguar densities for both the high and low suitable habitats. The total jaguar population was estimated in ~4,000 individuals for 2010 census and ~4,800 for the 2018 census. The Yucatan Peninsula was the region with the largest population, around 2000 jaguars, in both censuses. Our promising results indicate that the actions we proposed in the National Jaguar Conservation Strategy, some of which have been implemented working together with the Federal Government, other NGO's, and land owners, are improving jaguar conservation in Mexico. The continuation of surveys and monitoring programs of the jaguar populations in Mexico will provide accurate information to design and implement effective, science-based conservation measures to try to ensure that robust jaguar populations remain a permanent fixture of Mexico's natural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]