On March 7, Mongabay’s Rhett A. Butler released a great feature about jaguars (Panthera onca) in Bolivia. More specifically, the article deals with a ranch that is serving as a bastion of conservation.
The ranch at the center of Butler’s article is called San Miguelito. Run by Duston Larsen and his partner Anai Holzmann, San Miguelito is showing other ranchers that it is possible to coexist with jaguars.
Larsen and Holzmann have invested in ecotourism – allowing guests to pay to visit their ranch and search for wildlife – which diversifies their income. As such, Larsen and Holzmann are better able to absorb the financial losses that occur when jaguars harm their cattle. San Miguelito also experiences far less jaguar predation than it once did.
Larsen and Holzmann have been working with Panthera, the global wildcat conservation organization, to better protect their cattle from jaguars. Taking steps like corralling calves and incorporating water buffalo and Criollo cattle into their herds – both of which are known to stand their ground against predators – has led to a sharp reduction in jaguar attacks; between 2013 and 2018, livestock losses declined by 92% on San Miguelito.
Of course, jaguars cannot survive without suitable habitat. To that end, Larsen and Holzmann are advocating for leaving wider strips of trees in soy fields than the government mandates. While these habitat paths are not as preferable as intact forests, they could serve as corridors that allow jaguars to move throughout human-dominated farmlands.
Forest patches are also good for soy beans, which benefit from the lower temperatures and higher humidities that the trees promote.
All together, San Miguelito is an example of how other ranches in Central and South America might operate. Rather than trying to ‘combat’ nature, Larsen and Holzmann have found ways to benefit both themselves and their local environment. In that regard, San Miguelito may serve as a glimpse into a better future.
The Jaguar 
It’s nice to see that more people are remembering how to live with nature, rather than trying to control it.
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Yes, it is! And the example of a few people can transfer to many.
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I think most people just need a nudge in the right direction and then they realise it’s not a fight of animals against humans.
Education and a little compromise can benefit both, but it needs people like yourself to constantly reinforce that idea.
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Most people just need a little nudge, but for others the man vs. wild mentality is more entrenched. Less visible factors can also influence how people respond to wildlife, such as political and identity-based struggles for which animals have become scapegoats. The so-called ‘war on wolves’ in the U.S. is an example of such a conflict, and I believe I’ve read that the animosity towards hen-harriers in the UK also has identity-based drivers. I’m admittedly not an expert on that issue, however.
I hope that my constant harping helps in some ways :P
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Two interesting things in this piece:
1. the fact that mixing water buffalo into herds of cattle as ‘protectors’ is ACTUALLY beneficial
2. agroforestry has the potential to benefit farmers (higher yields, more profit) AND will provide more habitat for big cats.
Neat how those two small changes can do so much for wild cats.
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Yes, having a few water buffalo in with a herd of cattle helps to keep predators at bay. Solitary predators like jaguars can’t risk injury, so they tend to stay away from prey that stands their ground.
However, I’m not sure Larsen and Holzmann are advocating for agroforestry per se, because they’re not selling the trees or any of their products. As I understand it, agroforestry involves growing trees like crops so you can log them and/or sell products that the trees produce. In San Miguelito’s case, the Bolivian gov’t requires farmers to leave strips of trees intact on their properties. Larsen and Holzmann are simply trying to get their neighbors to leave more trees standing than the gov’t mandates.
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I see. I meant agroforestry in the sense that trees should be incorporated in crop land because of benefits like shading, biodiversity, and limited erosion.
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Oh yes, in that case you were completely correct. I have no idea what the technical term is for that kind of land management :(
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