Jaguars under threat as record wildfires, made worse by climate breakdown, sweep tropical wetlands in Brazil

Name: Fires ravaging world’s largest wetland and large parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil
Uploaded: 2020-09-14T15:45:14.000Z
Duration: 3 min 19 s
Description: Fires ravaging world’s largest wetland and large parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil

With the lowest rainfall in 47 years, the Meeting of the Waters park is too dry to protect its animals, which are a big tourist attraction

Some 200 jaguars have already been killed, injured or displaced and more than 10 per cent of the land has been consumed by fire

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Fires rage in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, home to the world's largest jaguar population. Photo: AFP

Associated Press

Published: 11:45pm, 14 Sep 2020Updated: 7:55pm, 16 Sep 2020

Wildfire has infiltrated a Brazilian state park known for its population of jaguars as firefighters, environmentalists and ranchers in the world’s largest tropical wetlands region struggle to smother record blazes.

The fire had surrounded the Encontro das Aguas (Meeting of the Waters) park in the Pantanal, located at the border of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul states, but for a time rivers helped keep the flames at bay. Then wind carried sparks into the park and the fire has been wreaking destruction for over a week.

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Fires ravaging world’s largest wetland and large parts of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil

Preliminary figures from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, based on satellite images, indicate that nearly 5,800 square miles (1.5 million hectares) have burned in the Pantanal region since the start of August – an expanse comparable to the area consumed by the historic blazes now afflicting California. It’s also well beyond the previous fire season record of 2005.

Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, whose satellites monitor the fires, said the number of Panantal fires in the first 12 days of September was nearly triple the figure for the same period last year. From January through August, the number of fires more than tripled, topping 10,000.

Around 200 jaguars have been killed, injured or displaced by the wildfires. Photo: Getty Images

There is little hope for any near-term help from rainfall, said the Mato Grosso firefighters’ spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Sheila Sebalhos.