Rare cloud jaguar sighting in Honduran highlands boosts conservation optimism
Cameras captured a lone male jaguar, nicknamed the “cloud jaguar,” at about 2,200 meters in Honduras’ Sierra del Merendón—the first high-elevation jaguar sighting there in a decade. Conservationists say the sighting signals that habitat protection and wildlife corridors, like the Jaguar Corridor Initiative linking Honduras and Guatemala, may support big-cat recovery, though deforestation and prey loss remain ongoing threats. Honduras has protected cloud forests since 1987 and is expanding conservation efforts, including a planned Wildlife Refuge Guanales, as part of broader regional jaguar protection efforts that also saw a Mexico jaguar population increase and a new international framework to safeguard the species.
