Wildlife Research in Belize

Conservation research on Belizean mammals

Welcome

Research

About

Publications

Field updates

Opportunities

Sponsors

Useful links

Tropical rainforest in the

Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, Belize

Welcome

Use the navigation bar above to find out about our projects (click on Research) and the people involved (click on About). You can read a bibliography of published work (click on Publications). Find out what’s new in the field (click on Field updates). We are always open to new collaborations, as well as taking on enthusiastic research & field assistants, students and volunteers (click on Opportunities). We could not continue our work without the generous donations and support of organizations and individuals (click on Sponsors). We are part of a larger network of academics, conservations and NGOs working on mammal ecology and conservation throughout Central America (click on Useful links). Our work is documented photographically (click on Photo gallery).

Text, figures and photos on this website are copy right. Please contact us for permission to use them.

Forest cover and protected areas of Belize

Map layers courtesy of  Jan Meerman (2004)

Belize, a brief introduction ...

Formerly … British Honduras; since 1981 a nation state

 

Location ... Central America, below Mexico, east of Guatemala, north of Honduras, with a Caribbean coastline

 

Size … 280 x 120 km

 

Population … 294,000

 

Human density … lowest in CA, 12 people/ km²

 

Capital city … Belmopan (12,000)

 

Largest city … Belize City (70,000)

 

Economy … sugar, citrus, ecotourism

 

Forest cover … 70%

 

Protected areas … 28% of the land is protected, including 6280 km² of tropical forest

This website describes on-going ecological research on the terrestrial mammals of Belize. Currently our research is focused on the big cats (jaguars and pumas) and their prey species (peccaries, deer, pacas and armadillos). The research is providing much-needed data about the natural history of several species and is addressing key conservation questions about species persistence in an increasingly human-influenced landscape.