‘Cloud jaguar’ spotted in Honduras
Photographers captured a young male 'cloud jaguar' in Honduras’ Sierra del Merendón—the first documented sighting there in ten years. (CNN) (edition.cnn.com) CNN reports local researchers described the photo as a hopeful sign for jaguar presence and regional conservation monitoring efforts. (CNN) (edition.cnn.com)
A young male jaguar has been photographed in Honduras’ Sierra del Merendón for the first documented time in a decade. (aol.com) The cat was recorded by camera trap on February 6, 2026, at about 2,200 meters in high-altitude forest, where local researchers call these rare mountain sightings “cloud jaguars.” (aol.com) Sierra del Merendón straddles the Honduras-Guatemala border and includes Cusuco National Park in Honduras and the Sierra Caral reserve in Guatemala. Panthera said the area has long suffered from habitat fragmentation and human disturbance that disrupted jaguar movement across the region. (panthera.org) Researchers and park rangers in the range have expanded patrols, camera traps and acoustic monitors that listen for gunshots and other signs of illegal hunting. Panthera said those teams also built a shared SMART database with Honduran and Guatemalan partners to track threats across the border. (panthera.org) Jaguars have lost 49% of their historic range across the Americas, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and populations outside Amazonia are classified as endangered or critically endangered. In Honduras, Franklin Castañeda of Panthera said deforestation and poaching remain the biggest threats. (aol.com) Honduras lost 1.5 million hectares of tree cover between 2001 and 2024, or 19% of its total, according to Global Forest Watch data cited by CNN. The same report said permanent agriculture, including plantations and grazing land, was the main driver. (aol.com) The Merendón cloud forests have been protected since 1987 because they supply water to nearby communities. Castañeda said that protection also preserved important jaguar habitat, even before officials understood the full role those forests played for the species. (aol.com) Panthera said it has worked in Honduras since 2009 and has used camera traps, genetic samples, ranger teams and prey reintroduction projects to map and reinforce the country’s jaguar corridor. The group says Honduras is now a central link in that corridor. (panthera.org) The Honduran government has also adopted a national jaguar conservation plan published in 2025 and a Zero Deforestation Plan 2029 aimed at cutting forest loss and restoring 1.3 million hectares of forest by the end of the decade. (chmhonduras.org; aol.com) For now, the image shows one male jaguar, not a full population count. But after ten years without a documented sighting in Sierra del Merendón, conservation teams now have fresh evidence that the cat is still moving through Honduras’ mountain forests. (aol.com)
