A rare black jaguar called Bosh is at the Belize Zoo being rehabilitated after he was left to starve by a the management of a resort in the Toledo district.
The cat was found at Belize Loge and Excursions, in the Boden Creek Ecological Preserve adjacent to Indian Creek village in Toledo.
The property was formerly a high end, five star, ecotourism resort featuring captive animals to display to their guests. But the resort seems to have fallen on hard times and management stopped paying their staff and stopped feeding the animals.
Marchilio Ack, the haad ranger from the Ya'xche conservation trust became aware of their plight on Saturday and told us what he found when he went to the resort:..
Marchilio Ack, Head Ranger - Ya'axche Conservation Trust
"When I reach out there I saw the jaguar barely moving, he was starving to death because you could see that he is very slim. There were two of them, we saw the other jaguar motionless - not moving, we tried to give him stuff to see if he could move but he was already dead. There was no water in the cage and they has not been feeding the jaguar. That the reason why one of the jaguar died."
"On Saturday I start feeding the jaguar that was alive with chicken; we can see that he gain some energy and started to move around. The condition that we found him in he was barely moving."
"It was outrageous because as a person working for 12 years being an environmentalist, I mean this sort of behavior in treating this wildlife is out of order. I think we have laws governing this, especially for the jaguar because they are endangered species and somebody needs to look after them very carefully. I felt very sad about it, it's really hurt to see how they are treating the jaguar at the site."
The cat has been rescued by the Belize Wildlife Conservation Network and was this morning transferred to the Belize Zoo.
The Forestry Department is working on charges to be levied against the owner under the Wildlife Protection Act. He did not have a permit to have possession of the cats.
The owner, Ken Karas is also facing major backlash from workers who said they were not paid for an extended period of time.
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