‘Rare’ predator appears on trail camera in second-ever sighting at Honduras park
In a darkened forest of western Honduras, a meandering predator moved through the trees and around some fallen branches. Unbeknownst to it, a nearby camera snapped several photos of the “rare” moment.
Rangers and conservationists installed trail cameras at Cusuco National Park in late 2024 as part of ongoing efforts to monitor the park’s wildlife, Franklin Castañeda, the Honduras Country Director for Panthera, told McClatchy News on May 2.
A few months later in February, the team collected the cameras and started sifting through the data — “and that’s when we found this great news,” Castañeda said.
One trail camera had taken several photos of a puma on the morning of Dec. 6. Photos show the male puma emerge from the trees, approach the camera and turn to the side. Its eyes almost seem to glow in the dark.
“This camera trap photo is only the second documented puma sighting in the Merendón Mountain Range on the border of Honduras and Guatemala,” Panthera, an organization dedicated to wild cat conservation, said in an April 29 Facebook post.
Pumas are scientifically known as Puma concolor but also commonly called cougars or mountain lions.
“We are really excited with this new record” because “it’s so rare to find” in Cusuco National Park, Castañeda said. “It was just an explosion of joy.”
The puma seen in December does not live at the park but was likely moving from one population to another.
Because of its location, Cusuco National Park serves “a very important role for large cat connectivity” by supporting “genetic flow” between puma populations, Castañeda said. Genetic flow refers to the new animals joining an isolated population and increasing their genetic diversity. Without this process, “isolated populations and low genetic diversity populations are more vulnerable to extinction.”
“Cusuco National Park was declared as a protected area in 1987 … but for a very long time,...there was no real protection,” Castañeda said.
Over the past decade, Panthera and other partner organizations have worked to increase the park’s number of wildlife rangers, support anti-poaching efforts and boost its overall conservation.
“When we started the program, we didn’t even think we would get this far,” Castañeda said.
The recent big cat sightings are viewed as a conservation success and “has to do with the good protection and patrol work that the park rangers are doing,” Castañeda said. “They are the real heroes.”
The team already placed more trail cameras in hopes of seeing the puma again.
“Our plans are to continue to work in Cusuco National Park, only stepping forward (and) not a single step backwards,” Castañeda said.
This story was originally published May 2, 2025 at 2:37 PM with the headline "‘Rare’ predator appears on trail camera in second-ever sighting at Honduras park."
