Miní, a female jaguar, is adjusting to life in her new home in Argentina’s El Impenetrable National Park after the world’s first-ever 'wild-to-wild' jaguar translocation.
Born in Iberá National Park (also in Argentina), Miní has joined two previously captive female jaguars that have already been released into the park in an attempt to recover the species in the Gran Chaco ecosystem, where a small, all-male wild population had been dwindling.
“As a top predator, the jaguar plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem so that it’s functional,” says Sebastián Di Martino, Conservation Director of Rewilding Argentina, explaining the move.
“We know healthy ecosystems with greater biodiversity are more resilient to changes, for example in the face of climate change.
"Culturally, jaguars have long played an important role in the local traditions of the Chaco, reaching back before colonisation. It can also bring economic benefits – as El Impenetrable National Park develops as a nature-based tourism destination, wildlife-watching draws visitors from all over the world, creating opportunities for local communities.
"But it’s more elemental than that: returning the top predator is also about coexistence and respecting the right of all species to exist.”
Into the Gran Chaco
The Gran Chaco is a vast, semi-arid region that stretches across approximately 1.4 million square kilometres (540,000 square miles) of northern Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and parts of Brazil, encompassing dry forests, scrubland and grassland.
The ecosystem is one of the largest and most biodiverse in South America, home to Indigenous communities and diverse wildlife, including the jaguar, the maned wolf, tapirs, giant armadillos and many different bird species, including rheas.
Due to deforestation, agricultural expansion and climate change, the Gran Chaco is also one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world currently.
In Argentina, the situation for jaguars is critical. The species has lost over 95% of its original range, with less than 200 jaguars remaining in the wild, surviving in fragmented populations or alone.
In recent years, researchers found fewer than 10 confirmed jaguars remaining in the Gran Chaco, all of them male. In 2024, Rewilding Argentina released two female jaguars, one born in captivity and the other rescued in Paraguay.
Virtues of translocation
Efforts to restore the jaguar population in El Impenetrable National Park began in 2018, when a park ranger discovered the tracks of a solitary male jaguar, who was collared and monitored, and bred with captive females brought from the Jaguar Reintroduction Center in Iberá Park, producing cubs for wild release.
Since his discovery, one other wild male has been discovered. But without females, their species faced a dead end.
Mini is the first-ever release of a wild-born jaguar that’s been translocated for conservation purposes. She was born wild and free in Iberá National Park, the offspring of jaguars rewilded by Rewilding Argentina.
The move is a genetic lifeline to a species that was until recently considered to be headed for extinction.
“The biggest challenge is administrative: obtaining permissions for the translocation, as it’s the first wild-to-wild jaguar translocations undertaken in the world,” Di Martino explains.
“Translocation needs to be recognised as an important tool for restoring endangered or extinct populations of many species. Usually translocations are perceived as too risky, but if they are well-planned they will not affect the source population or the individuals that are being translocated.
"As a process, it’s much more straightforward than breeding species for release – it’s more efficient, less expensive, and allows you to have more scale and impact.”
Miní on the move
In October 2024, Miní journeyed around 600 kilometres, from the San Alonso Jaguar Reintroduction Center in Iberá National Park, in Argentina’s north-eastern province of Corrientes, to El Impenetrable National Park, which is in the northern province of Chaco.
She travelled by small aircraft, then covered the last 130 kilometres in pick-up trucks, before being released into a large quarantine pen, where she’s spent several months acclimatising to her new environment.
The pen’s door was opened this week. Miní has been fitted with a radio collar, so the team can monitor her whereabouts and safety.
Translocations can sometimes go badly, occasionally leading to fatalities if animals struggle to adapt to a new environment. But the team expects Miní to thrive.
“Jaguars are generalists,” Di Martino says. “As a species, they live in diverse ecosystems, from tropical forests to desert environments, and prey on a wide range of species. It’s true that an individual from the wetlands will need to adapt to living in the dry forest. That’s why we keep them in a pre-release pen, in this case an area of four acres, for several months, where they’re monitored closely, before their release into the wild.
"Iberá is a subtropical wetland and has small islands of forests within the grassland, and lots of water. The Chaco is a dry, dense forest with some grasslands and water. The prey of the jaguar is similar in both areas: principally peccary, caiman, capybara, brocket deer… While capybaras are the most abundant prey in Iberá, peccaries dominate in El Impenetrable.”
What's next?
Miní won’t be the last animal to be relocated as part of a wider mission to 'rewild’ the area.
"In El Impenetrable National Park, besides reintroducing the jaguar, we’ve already released around 75 red-footed tortoises, and we’re working to reintroduce marsh deer, guanaco and giant otters.
"In the future, we’re also planning to reintroduce pampas deer. The ecological restoration of El Impenetrable will eventually enable it to become a source of species to repopulate other parts of the Gran Chaco dry forest, which can find connectivity through the river systems, from Argentina to Paraguay and Bolivia.”
Main image: Mini is the first-ever release of a wild-born jaguar that’s been translocated for conservation purposes. Credit: Fundación Rewilding Argentina/Tompkins Conservation
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