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animals · wildfiresScale 3/5significant risk of worsening

Pantanal wildfires and jaguars

South America, Pantanal (Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul)since 2020

The Pantanal, the world's largest tropical wetland and a jaguar stronghold, burns increasingly often in drought years.

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In 2024 fire burned 2.6 million ha of the Pantanal, 17 percent of the biome, the second worst year since 2012 after 3.6 million ha in 2020 (LASA/UFRJ). A 2022 study found that the 2020 fires affected about 45 percent of the Pantanal jaguar population, and in 2024 fire swept about 80 percent of the Caiman Ecological Refuge, destroying Onçafari's jaguar rewilding enclosures. From 1 January to 17 September 2026, 113,014 ha of Pantanal burned in Mato Grosso do Sul, 179.7 percent more than a year earlier, although biome-wide burned area remains below the 2012-2025 average.

Species

SpeciesIUCN statusPopulationSource
Panthera onca Panthera oncanear threatened (IUCN NT) (2022)nature.com

Needs

Who is helping

Organisations that, according to their own publications, work on this event (2). Donations go directly to each organisation's own website - GLOBURNS does not handle payments.

Latest reports

Sources

Seed record, before editorial verification. Every number links to its source; report errors on the Corrections page. Methodology · Corrections

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