WCS shared a video today showing incredible footage of a jaguar swimming across Placencia Lagoon in southern Belize.  The video, shot by Belizean boat captain Darryl Lozano, shows the jaguar effortlessly swimming across a channel until it reaches some red mangroves on a shoreline. WCS recognizes the Placencia Lagoon as an important fish nursery, with rare Halophila seagrass and a mangrove forest surrounding a critical Antillean manatee hotspot. WCS is supporting local efforts to get this la...

The Nassau grouper—a fish known for its spectacular spawning aggregations in and around the Caribbean Sea—is now a “Critically Endangered” species, according to a new assessment by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) that was recently published and supported by studies and data generated by WCS scientists working in the coastal waters of Belize.

A new study by WCS, El Colegio de Frontera Sur, Washington State University and other key regional partners has found that the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), one of the last large herding mammals of the Americas, has been eliminated from 87 percent of its historical range in Mesoamerica. 

In an unprecedented global commitment to saving the jaguar, leading international conservation organizations and key jaguar range states have joined together to launch the Jaguar 2030 Conservation Roadmap for the Americas, presented today/this week at the Conference of Parties (COP) 14 of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Honduras’s Moskitia region is a place of legend, the site of the recently uncovered ancient city—the White City—and one of the planet’s last strongholds for an incredible diversity of wildlife. Yesterday, Nov. 8, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and the minister of the Institute of Forest Conservation (ICF) Director Arnaldo Bueso announced the government’s commitment to protecting the Moskitia and its people with an initiative called SOS Honduras: St...

Government-employed park rangers in Central American countries described a challenging and often inhospitable work environment in their responses in a recent survey (English | Spanish) on their wellbeing and working conditions conducted by Global Wildlife Conservation, Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and local partners. 

WCS welcomed the decision by the UNESCO-World Heritage Committee to remove the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System from the “List of World Heritage in Danger.”

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Yale University have created a plan to preserve one of the last intact forest strongholds for the jaguar and other iconic species in Central America: the Moskitia Forest Corridor.

March 22, 2018 — Logging activities in biodiverse forests can have a huge negative impact on wildlife, particularly large species such as big cats, but a new study proves that the Western Hemisphere’s largest cat species—the jaguar (Panthera onca)—can do well in logging concessions that are properly managed, according to conservationists from the San Diego Zoo Global and the Bronx Zoo-based WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society). 

Jaguar populations have grown at an average annual rate of nearly 8 percent across field sites where the Wildlife Conservation Society works in Latin America from 2002 to 2016.