Big cats are still walking in El Salvador: first photographic records of Puma concolor (Linnaeus, 1771) and an overview of historical records in the country

Abstract

The presence of Puma, Puma concolor, has been controversial in El Salvador due to the lack of published, verifiable data. We surveyed 119 sites in Montecristo National Park and 17 sites in the Río Sapo basin using wildlife cameras. We detected Pumas in both areas, representing the first photographic records for El Salvador. We call for a national Puma conservation strategy with research in basic ecology and migration corridors, regulation of hunting, management of livestock losses, and public acceptance programs. The Río Sapo basin should be granted formal protection.

New records of Lontra longicaudis (Olfers, 1818) (Carnivora, Mustelidae) in El Salvador

“…Río Sapo has records from various years (Owen and Girón 2012;Argueta-Rivera et al 2020) and in different sectors (middle and low basin). It is possibly that low human disturbance in this river has benefited this species, supporting the management and conservation proposals for this area, as suggested by Argueta-Rivera et al (2020) and Morales-Rivas et al (2020).…”

A community-based survey of mammals in the Río Sapo basin, El Salvador

“…One of the most relevant findings is the record of P. concolor in six different months during our study (April, July, August, September, October, and November 2019), becoming the study with the most evidence of this species in the country (see Morales-Rivas et al, 2020). This species was considered by some authors as extinct or unlikely to inhabit the country, mainly due to the demand for large forest areas (Campbell & Torres Alvarado, 2011;Crespin & García-Villalta, 2014;Campbell, 2015;Campbell, 2019).…”

“…Currently, there are efforts to study the mammals in El Salvador, however, most information remains part of technical reports and very few get published in scientific journals (e.g. Morales Hernández, 2002;Girón, Owen, & Rodríguez, 2010;Campbell & Torres-Alvarado, 2011;Crespín, 2011;Owen & Girón, 2012;Crespin & García-Villalta, 2014;Campbell, 2015;Pineda Peraza, Segura Yanes, Medina Zeledón, Flores-Márquez, & López, 2017;Morales-Rivas et al, 2020), and many times, researchers ignore the role of local communities as crucial actors in the generation of data, despite when local actors can reduce research costs and increase the quality of information due to their knowledge of the territory, besides offering an exchange of knowledge between researchers and local communities (Conrad & Hilchey, 2011). Even this can favor the production of scientific material within hostile territories dominated by drug trafficking, gangs, or illicit associations in sites of biodiversity hot-spots, such as occurs in remote forests within the Central American region (Sesnie et al, 2017).…”

Bioacoustics characterization and habitat use of glass frogs in El Salvador

“…This study belongs to a series of works carried out for the study area whose purpose is to generate scientific knowledge under a community science or citizen science approach (see Morales-Rivas et al, 2020;Argueta et al, 2020), an approach that has been expanded greatly in recent years and has proven to be a reliable technique for co-producing scientific knowledge (Kosmala et al, 2016;Fritz et al, 2019;Rowley et al, 2019;Callaghan et al, 2020). It is probably that this study is the first count and bioacoustics analysis of glassfrog in El Salvador and perhaps is the only one with more records and information on this species in the country.…”