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Pheromone Fences to Protect Migration Corridors for Jaguars and Other Wildlife

Can animals be herded using pheromone fences?

This thought occurred to me as I read the March 2009 issue of National Geographic, where Mel White contributes an article titled “Path of the Jaguar.” The article discusses efforts to preserve the corridor Jaguars follow as they range from Mexico to Argentina, which is referred to locally as Paseo del Jaguar.

The article starts with a tale of desperation. Mel White writes:

At dusk one evening, deep in a Costa Rican forest, a young male jaguar rises from his sleep, stretches, and silently but determinedly leaves forever the place where he was born.

There’s shelter here, and plenty of brocket deer, peccaries, and agoutis for food. He has sensed, too, the presence of females with which he might mate. But there’s also a mature male jaguar that claims the forest—and the females. The older cat will tolerate no rivals. The breeze-blown scent of the young male’s mother, so comforting to him when he was a cub, no longer binds him to his home. So he goes.

But the wanderer has chosen the wrong direction. In just a few miles he reaches the edge of the forest; beyond lies a coffee plantation.

The story continues with the jaguar losing its way and growing hungry, finally leaving the protection of the forest, crossing the open plain of a ranch, and killing a calf for food. Later the jaguar is hunted and killed, a victim of circumstance. The article continues by outlying efforts to protect the corridor and provide a buffer between the jaguar’s habitat and human development.

As I read the rest of the article, the phrase “the wanderer has chosen the wrong direction” stuck in mind. The jaguar knew to leave based on the smell of the dominant male, so why not direct him with the same instinctual response to smell, using a pheromone fence to guide his way?

Some questions…

• Could flowering plants be genetically modified to emit the pheromone?
• How could those plants be limited to fencelines?
• Could volunteers spray the pheromones along a fenceline on a regular basis?
• Could human developments which threaten the jaguars be required to provide their own pheromone fence?

What do you think?

© 2009 Nathan Verrill.