NAU Researcher Awarded NASA Grant to Advance Global Wild Cat Conservation
Assistant research professor Patrick Jantz of SICCS has received a prestigious grant from NASA’s Biological Diversity and Ecological Conservation Program to lead a groundbreaking project aimed at protecting some of the world’s most iconic wild cats. The initiative, titled Upscaling Connecting Landscapes, will harness cutting-edge NASA Earth observation data to help conservation organizations model and mitigate the impacts of landscape change on big cat populations.
Working in collaboration with global conservation leaders Panthera and the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Jantz and his team are developing a user-friendly, web-based decision support tool. The tool will enable researchers and policymakers to analyze habitat connectivity for five focal species: lion, tiger, jaguar, clouded leopard, and puma.
Although global in scope, the project has significant relevance to North America. Jantz noted the potential to identify key wildlife corridors for puma and jaguar in Arizona, with local sightings underscoring the importance of regional conservation efforts. “I saw a puma in the wild near Lake Mary a couple of years ago. I won’t forget it,” he shared.
Over the next three years, the research team—comprising Jantz, another research professor, a postdoctoral scholar, and an incoming master’s student in Informatics—will collaborate with Panthera and WildCRU to ensure the software is a practical resource for conservation planning. The tool is expected to inform strategies such as educational outreach, wildlife corridor identification, and the placement of infrastructure like underpasses and bridges to reduce human-wildlife conflict.
The project officially launched in March 2025 and is slated to continue through early 2028.