Mother Jaguar and Cubs

Mongabay.com's Picture of the Day is from Bolivia.

This jaguar mother was photographed with her two cubs in the Kaa Iya National Park in Bolivia.

"Kaaiyana’s tolerance of observers is a testimony to the absence of hunters in this area, and her success as a mother means there is plenty of food for her and her cubs to eat," said John Polisar, coordinator of Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Jaguar Conservation Program. WCS released the photos.

December Newsletter Online

Conservation in ACTION
Launched earlier this year, the Proyecto Tesoros de Nicaragua ( Proyecto TESÓN), a joint effort to clean up the San Juan River catchment, has already demonstrated how public-private partnerships can work to build a more pristine and sustainable Nicaragua.

There are now three Ambassadors of the Environment working around the clock to clean up garbage near the estuary and along the beach, and to monitor the volume and make up of debris. Proyecto TESÓN's Ambassadors also lead seminars for local students on the importance of environmental stewardship, and recruit young people to participate in cleaning up local waterways....

Team member spotlight
Paso Pacifico's executive director Sarah Otterstrom, mother of three, is a PhD ecologist who studied the effects of agricultural burning on the dry tropical forests of southern Nicaragua.

She grew up in in the woods at the edge of high desert country in eastern Washington, did her undergraduate work in Costa Rica, where she led tourism expeditions through the rainforest canopy, and completed her graduate studies at the University of California at Davis....

Read the full newsletter online.

Big Cat Sounds

AKA why we love the Guardian's GrrlScientist:

"Big cat" is not a precise biological term, it is just a verbal shorthand for distinguishing the larger members of the taxonomic family Felidae from smaller ones. Some people formally define "big cats" as the four Panthera species: the tiger, lion, jaguar, and leopard. But other people also include cheetah, snow leopard, clouded leopard, and cougar under the "big cat" umbrella.

Big cats make interesting sounds. For example, only Panthera can roar. For this reason, they are often collectively known as "the roaring cats". Roaring requires special morphology of the larynx and hyoid apparatus in the animal's throat. Interestingly, despite having hyoid morphology similar to roaring cats, snow leopards cannot roar.

Read more at The Guardian. Or simply watch the video from Big Cat Rescue: