A solitary male jaguar has been captured on camera trap footage at around 2,200 metres above sea level in the Sierra del Merendón mountain range in western Honduras, marking the first such high-altitude sighting in the country since 2016. Jaguars typically live below 1,000 metres, making the February 6 sighting — documented by conservation organisation Panthera after monitoring the area for 15 years — exceptionally rare, with only three high-altitude jaguar observations ever recorded in Honduras. The find is seen as an encouraging sign for the species in a country that has lost 1.5 million hectares of forest over the past 25 years, though reduced poaching and government commitments to restore 1.3 million hectares of forest are offering cautious grounds for optimism.