RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In 2019, Bianca gave birth to the first jaguar cub born through artificial insemination. Now the 8-year-old female could once again contribute to the preservation of her species. That is, if everything goes according to plan and she can be impregnated with frozen semen.
Scientists say frozen semen would be easy to transport and thus help ensure the genetic diversity of jaguars, whose populations are increasingly fragmented due to habitat destruction, according to theriogenologist Lindsey Vansandt, a specialist in veterinary reproductive medicine at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.
“The population is becoming smaller and smaller, and then inbreeding happens, which has many negative consequences,” Vansandt told The Associated Press moments after performing the procedure on Bianca, who was sedated on a surgical table.
“If we can take the sperm from a male and inseminate a female elsewhere we can keep their gene flow in motion and the population healthier,” Vansandt said.
Wildlife experts from the Cincinnati Zoo, the Federal University of Mato Grosso and Mata Ciliar environmental organization have for years been developing an insemination program for the largest felines in the Western Hemisphere. They work with animals rescued from habitat loss in the Amazon rainforest, the Cerrado savannah and the Pantanal wetlands, which have seen an increase in deforestation and fires in recent years.
Some jaguars seriously injured by last year’s fires in the Pantanal were taken to specialized facilities to be treated. Others died or were displaced.
“Look what happened in the Pantanal, in the Cerrado,” said veterinarian and Mata Ciliar coordinator Cristina Adania. “They kill them even before we can attend to them, so something must be done.”
According to projections from a study published this year by Panthera – a group that advocates for wild cat conservation – the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul and other partners, nearly 1,500 jaguars were killed or displaced due to fire and habitat loss in the Brazilian Amazon from 2016 through 2019.
Displaced jaguars are unlikely to thrive in new environments, which could be habitat for other territorialist animals, according to Panthera. In addition, they are unfamiliar with the best place to find prey, which may force them to hunt livestock, placing them at risk of being killed by ranchers.
On its Red List, the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies jaguars as a “near endangered” species – a grade above vulnerable – although their population is declining and their habitat is “severely degraded.”
Bianca was still a cub in the Amazon when she was rescued and brought to Mata Ciliar. Like some felines born in the wild and living at the Brazilian Center for the Conservation of Neotropical Felines in Jundiai, Bianca cannot be reintroduced to the forest, Adania said. Another female jaguar, named Tabatinga, was also artificially inseminated at the facility on Thursday.
Thawed jaguar semen retains its quality for only a few hours, Vansandt said. Frozen semen can be used for years, but typically for felines it has a lower success rate compared to humans.
If Bianca’s case is successful, it will save the effort and stress of transporting carnivores weighing up to 136 kilograms (300 pounds) to mate. And even if a jaguar is transported, there is no guarantee that it will pair well with what would be its mate, Adania said.
“This is good for genetic diversity, but also for the broader goal of increasing jaguar numbers,” Vansandt said. “The goal is to increase their numbers until there is a stable population.”