Wild animals are disappearing in Latin America. Colombia is fighting back.

La Negra, a jaguar, paces and hisses in her cage at a remote environmental observatory in the lush jungle of southwestern Colombia. Jaguars, fiercely strong cats native to the Americas, are known as kings of the jungle. But La Negra grew up in a cage and will probably die in one, too.

Likely born into captivity or captured by traffickers at a very young age, she was brought to the center by Colombia’s environmental police in 2015 when she was still a cub. She’s too comfortable being around humans, a reason she can never be set free.

But situations like hers, of trafficked animals being located or turned over and scientists figuring out what comes next, are at the heart of what’s motivating communities, researchers, and governments to try to halt Latin America’s startling rates of wildlife loss and trafficking that have taken place here over the past 50 years.

Latin America is home to around 40% of the planet’s species and to the biggest tropical rainforest, the Amazon. But it has suffered some of the most significant losses in the world: Animal populations in Latin America and the Caribbean plummeted by almost 95% over the past half-century, according to a 2024 report by the World Wildlife Fund and Zoological Society of London. (Africa, by comparison, had a 76% decline.) While extractive activities like agriculture, mining, and logging threaten natural habitats, animal trafficking is also to blame.

Humans are the greatest predators of all, says María Rosario Chicunque Chindoy, an Indigenous Kamëntšá woman from Valle de Sibundoy in Colombia’s Putumayo state. Trafficking wild species “generates a spiritual and emotional disequilibrium for us,” because each animal plays an important role in nature, she says.

Mie Hoejris Dahl

María Rosario Chicunque Chindoy, an Indigenous woman from the Colombian Amazon, stands in one of the animal parks for rescued wildlife at the Amazon Experimental Center Oct. 17, 2024.

More than conservation

When a woman from Brazil’s Amazonas state, which borders Colombia, first contacted Colombian environmental police about La Negra, she explained that a man whom she didn’t know well had asked her to keep the jaguar cub at her home for one day as a favor. It’s a common tale in the region where hundreds of animals are trafficked each year, affecting animal populations, compromising the health of local ecosystems, and often nurturing criminal networks.

Wildlife trafficking generates an estimated $23 billion annually worldwide, making it the fourth-largest source of criminal profits, behind drug trafficking, counterfeiting, and human trafficking. Wildlife trafficking is appealing because of the high profit margins, low penalties, and minimal risk of prosecution. Local poachers often bear the brunt of law enforcement – in Colombia the law says you can be sentenced to 12 years for capturing endangered species. Meanwhile, traffickers who move the animals internationally often profit from selling them for fashion, for traditional remedies, and as exotic pets without consequence.

The skins, feathers, and bones of endangered species such as jaguars, Andean condors, spectacled bears, and scarlet macaws are in high demand on the black market, according to the Colombian Ministry of Environment. Wildlife trafficking between South America and Asia is estimated to have doubled over the past decade, according to Wildlife Conservation Society.

Several Latin American countries, like Colombia, have escalated wildlife trafficking to a red-alert national security issue as links to transnational criminal groups have grown more evident. That allows for stronger crackdowns on traffickers, says Robert Muggah, founder of Igarapé Institute, a Brazil-based security and development think tank.

Although Colombia has tightened its legislation and penalties, established a Cybersecurity Capacity Center to conduct online patrols, and launched educational campaigns, such as giant billboards warning about the consequences of trafficking, overcoming the damage that’s already been carried out when an animal is trafficked is a challenge of its own.

Mie Hoejris Dahl

Mayerly Jhoana Delgado, seen here Oct. 17, 2024, is a biologist at the Amazon Experimental Center in Putumayo, in southeastern Colombia. She's part of a team working closely with Colombia’s rural and environmental police, as well as with academics and local communities, to try to halt wildlife trafficking.

Collaboration – and measured hope

Saving wildlife is a collaborative effort, says Mayerly Jhoana Delgado, a young biologist at the Amazon Experimental Center (known by its Spanish acronym, CEA) in Putumayo, in southeastern Colombia. She stands in the baking sun chatting to her colleagues ­– biologists, veterinarians, educators, and engineers – as fish leap from the water surrounding the floating pavilion upon which they stand. Her team at CEA works closely with Colombia’s rural and environmental police unit, Carabineros, as well as with academics who investigate wildlife and local communities that voluntarily hand over species that may have ended up in their care – no questions asked.

Last year, the Carabineros rescued three trafficked animals every hour on average and dismantled 34 criminal organizations involved in wildlife trafficking, according to government data. The unit’s efforts include patrols to detect online trafficking and inspections of markets, airports, ports, pet shops, and courier companies.

Ms. Delgado also collaborates with colleagues in other Amazonian countries, sometimes sharing pictures of unknown animals that arrive at the center to get input on the animals’ possible origin. The CEA has received hundreds of animals over the past nearly four decades, including alligators, macaws, turtles, and snakes.

In this work, one of Ms. Delgado’s biggest fears is the wrongful reinsertion of an animal, which can pose a threat to the animal’s survival as well as to humans in the vicinity. Central to a successful reentry into nature is making sure that captured animals don’t bond with human beings, says Abelardo Rodríguez Bolaños, a professor specialized in biodiversity management at Francisco José de Caldas District University in Bogotá.

Even once they are in the care of a center like CEA, the scientists must stay vigilant. “Every day in captivity, we get closer” to making it impossible to return an animal to their natural habitat, Mr. Rodríguez says. Strategies to keep animals wary include disturbing them with noises, smells, or even mild electric shocks that make them want to avoid humans.

“Everyone loves liberating animals,” he says, “but without proper [preparations], it can lead to worse outcomes.”