Number of wild animals rescued by Ibama centers increases by almost 30% in 2026

The number of wild animals rescued by Ibama centers increased by almost 30% in 2026. One of them is a jaguar just 4 months old.

The crying, almost a meow, is deceiving. Pam may have looked like a kitten when she was taken to a farm in Altamira, Pará. But she is a baby animal and now needs to leave her life as a pet behind to one day return to nature.

Pam spent about a month being raised as a pet. When she was rescued, she was malnourished and had lost her hair. He received his first care in the Belém region. Afterwards, he traveled more than 1,600 km to Brasília. By plane, it took about three hours.

"Pam is here, look, and so are we. But this type of contact will no longer be possible from now on. It's not out of fear, no. It's for her own good. After spending time as a pet, Pam needs to relearn how to be what she is, a beast", says reporter Marcos Losekann.

Number of wild animals rescued by Ibama centers increases by almost 30% in 2026 — Photo: Jornal Nacional/ Reproduction

At the Ibama Screening and Rehabilitation Center, in Taguatinga, in the Federal District, isolation is part of the treatment. Pam is in quarantine. Contact with people is reduced to a minimum. Even human voices must stay away from it. What Pam needs most now is to stop associating people with food, protection, company.

"As the phases progress, we increase the difficulty, increase the challenges and we evaluate at each step what she has acquired. She cannot be walking in the jungle or in a forest and hear the sound of a human voice and want to get closer, thinking that she will receive food because of that. So, we try to break this relationship immediately", explains Júlio César Montanha, head of Cetas Brasília.

Pam is one of thousands of victims of human insistence on turning wild animals into pets. Between 2022 and 2025, around 251 thousand animals passed through Ibama centers; 134 thousand were released - they returned to live as wild animals in the wild. The others are under human care.

The rehabilitation process can take up to two years. But the prognosis is good. In the last 15 months, 14 leopards arrived at the center. Five can return to the jungle. For now, Pam still behaves almost like a cat. The technicians' mission now is to make it grow without forgetting that it was born a jaguar.