In 2010, Gerardo Ceballos and a group of other researchers set out to answer a burning question: how many jaguars were there in Mexico? They knew there weren’t many. Hunting, loss of habitat, conflict with cattle ranchers and other issues had pushed the population to the brink of extinction.Ceballos and his team from the National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation (ANCJ) thought there were maybe 1,000 jaguars across the country. They decided to carry out the country’s first census of the animal to find out exactly how many there were. They found 4,100.
‘It was a great surprise, terrific news,’ Ceballos said. ‘Obviously 4,000 means the species is still in danger of extinction, but 4,000 is a lot better than 1,000.’
Fast-forward 15 years and the news has got even better. The group’s latest census found that in 2024 there were 5,326 jaguars in Mexico, a 30% increase compared with 2010.
A wild jaguar cub has been spotted in El Impenetrable National Park, part of the Gran Chaco region of northern Argentina – the first wild-born jaguar in the region for decades.
The young cub was seen beside its mother Nalá, a female jaguar born in captivity and released by Rewilding Argentina in August 2024 to help save the species from local extinction in the Argentine Chaco.
The sighting, made by local nature guides Darío Soraire and Pablo Luna, took place along the Bermejo River on 30 July 2025. Photos suggest the cub is around five months old.
Bobcats recently returned to New Jersey after being absent from the state for 50 years.
Snub-nosed monkeys are making a comeback in China.
Amur leopards are making a comeback in Russia’s far east.
The snow leopard population has doubled in Kazakhstan..
