Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary
protected area
The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary is a nature reserve in the Stann Creek District of south-central Belize. It was established to protect the forests, fauna and watersheds of an approximately 400 square kilometres (150 sq mi) area of the eastern slopes of the Maya Mountains.
The reserve was established in 1986 as the first protected area for protection of the jaguar (Panthera onca). It is regarded as a premier site for jaguar preservation in the world.
The name 'Cockscomb' derives from the appearance of the Cockscomb Mountain ridge, that resembles a rooster's comb, which is situated at the northern fringe of the reserve and which is easily visible from the coastal plain of the Caribbean Sea. Habitation by the ancient Mayas occurred in the Cockscomb Basin as early as 10,000 BCE. However, the first modern exploration in the recorded history of the basin did not occur until 1888.
Geography
The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary is actually comprised by two adjacent geographic basins. The West Basin is drained by the Swasey Branch, which is one of the main tributaries to the Monkey River. The East Basin consists of the upper watershed of South Stann Creek. The West Basin, being more difficult to access given distance from trailheads and higher forest density, is as of the current time still relatively unexplored from the standpoint of species mapping, Mayan ruins and other environmental details.
“Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary” enters the record as protected area. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cockscomb, Basin and Wildlife can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q672101. VIAF identifies the subject as 220067226. Authority coordinates are 16.800, -88.473. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986 and 1888.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.