The Impact of Jaguars and Jaguar Caused Trophic Cascades on Agricultural Livelihoods in Mexico

Understanding the negative and positive ways that jaguars impact agriculturalists in Mexico is important to understand the welfare implications of conserving jaguars and to envision forms of jaguar conservation that could have widespread support in agricultural communities. I used a mix of predator-prey modeling, focus groups, and surveys to investigate how jaguars, directly and indirectly, impact domestic animals and crops, as well as how people experience both jaguar presence and the loss of domestic animal and crop that jaguars cause or help prevent. The predator-prey models suggest that jaguars are likely to be most beneficial to agriculture (i.e. preventing the greatest loss in crops while causing fewer livestock losses) in tropical dry forests. The models also suggest jaguars will likely be somewhat less beneficial to agriculture in tropical rainforests and will be least beneficial in arid xeric environments. The focus groups showed that people living in a tropical rainforest in Mexico understand that jaguars may indirectly benefit some of their domestic animals and crops. Respondents had varied narratives and concerns about damages caused by jaguars and jaguars’ prey, suggesting varied preferences regarding jaguar conservation. Through surveys that quantified people’s preferences regarding jaguars and avoiding agricultural damage, I found that people highly valued jaguar conservation in the reserve but differed about whether they wanted jaguars on their own land. I also found that many people would value jaguars’ protection of their maize. However, there was a wide variation in how and whether the protection of maize would be valued. While jaguars do cause losses for people practicing agriculture, in this dissertation, I show it is plausible that jaguars also can benefit the agricultural livelihoods of a wide range of households in agricultural communities.