Food Habits and Livestock Depredation of Sympatric Jaguars and Pumas in the Iguaçu National Park Area, South Brazil

Abstract

Understanding coexistence between sympatric felines with similar body sizes, such as jaguars Panthera onca and pumas Puma concolor, requires knowledge of the way these predators consume and partition food resources. Yet the importance of livestock predation on jaguar and puma coexistence is poorly known. I investigated food habits and patterns of livestock depredation of jaguar and pumas in the Iguaçu National Park (INP) in southern Brazil. From 1997 to 2001, I collected scats opportunistically on trails and roads in INP and visited ranches on the border of INP. I found that jaguars relied mostly on large and medium‐sized wild prey species, while pumas concentrated on medium‐sized prey species. Livestock was the fifth most frequent prey found in jaguar scats but the most important one in terms of biomass consumed. Jaguar and puma diets differed significantly when all prey items were compared and also when livestock was excluded from the jaguar diet. Jaguar predation on livestock was considerably higher than predation by pumas. However, predation was not substantial relative to availability of livestock, and cattle likely constitute an alternative source of prey for jaguars. Degree of diet overlap between jaguar and puma in INP suggests that coexistence was likely driven by exploitative competition through some degree of food partitioning. My results highlight the importance of more actions toward increasing numbers of large ungulates to preserve the population of jaguars in INP.

Habitat features influencing jaguar Panthera onca (Carnivora: Felidae) occupancy in Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica

“…Across their range, jaguars (Panthera onca) take advantage of a relatively large number of prey species (Rabinowitz & Nottingham, 1986;Azevedo, 2008) with large and/or medium-sized prey species often the prominent items in the diets of jaguar populations (Chinchilla, 1997;López-González & Miller, 2002;Núñez, Miller, & Lindzey, 2002;Azevedo, 2008). Some individual jaguars may display selective tendencies with regards larger prey species (Weckel, Giuliano, & Silver, 2006).…”

Jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi) predation by puma (Puma concolor) in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

“…However, in large preserved areas of the Atlantic Forest, the feeding habits of pumas and jaguarundis are very different. Pumas feed mainly on medium-and large-sized prey (> 1 kg) (Brito 2000, Azevedo 2008, Martins et al 2008, while jaguarundis consumes preferentially small vertebrates (< 1 kg) (Bianchi et al 2011, Silva-Pereira et al 2011. In modified areas, this antagonist interaction could have a higher possibility of happening, since pumas include a large percentage of small vertebrates in their diet (Rocha et al 2010, Magioli et al 2014.…”

A morphological comparison of jaguars and pumas in southern Mexico

“…Although jaguars are larger than pumas where they are sympatric, there is overlap in their size and the size of prey they can hunt effectively; for this reason, several authors have considered them as potentially competing species (Taber et al 1997;Nuñez et al 2000;Scognamillo et al 2003;Novack et al 2005;Azevedo 2008;Rosas-Rosas et al 2008;Foster et al 2010). Several studies have examined the interactions between these species in areas of sympatry.…”