HISTORY

Jaguars are considered to have been common residents in the American Southwest until the beginning of the 20th century when western expansion resulted in loss of habitat and predator control programs wiped out remaining populations. Semi-regular sightings in Southeastern Arizona continued into the 1950s indicating a thinly scattered and declining resident jaguar population. The last documented female jaguar in Arizona was killed in 1963 in the White Mountains. Thought to have been extinct in the Southwestern United States, the jaguar was not included in the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Services 1972 list of federally endangered species. The Endangered Species Act, therefore, only addressed jaguars outside of the United States, and with the common consensus that jaguars were extinct in the United States; the great cat was basically forgotten. That is until 1996, when the borderlands jaguars made history.

RE-DISCOVERY

On March 7, 1996, experienced houndsman Warner Glenn was hunting mountain lions in the Pelloncillo Mountains along the Arizona/New Mexico border, when to his surprise, his hounds found an adult male jaguar. Instead of reaching for his rifle, this rancher took breathtaking photographs before he gathered his dogs, tipped his hat and rode away, hoping he’d see el tigre again soon in the Southwest. Surprisingly, six months later, on August 31, another mountain lion hunter had a similar experience in Arizona. Jack Childs and his party photographed and videotaped another adult male jaguar in the Baboquivari Mountains. They too gathered their dogs, wished good luck to Mister tigre and gratefully walked away.

CONSERVATION TEAM

Following these two history-making jaguar sightings in 1996, the Jaguar Conservation Team was formed to further protect and manage the jaguar in Arizona and New Mexico. In July 1997, world renowned jaguar biologist Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, Director of Science for the Wildlife Conservation Society, International Programs, wrote a letter to the Arizona -New Mexico Jaguar Conservation Team, titled The status of jaguars (Panthera Onca) in the United States: Trip report. He states in part, under sub title Recommendations for Future Actions: There is a need to gather biological data using techniques such as camera traps, track pads, and scent stations. At some point it might become advisable to radio collar a few individuals to determine their movement patterns and behavior in the southern United States and Northern Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Department agreed that the jaguar was a resident species in Arizona and formally listed the jaguar as an endangered species in the United States on August 21, 1997.

The Jaguar Conservation Team initiated a jaguar monitoring project later that year by supplying five remote trip cameras to both Warner Glenn and Jack Childs. These cameras were set in the areas of the two 1996 jaguar sightings, the Peloncillo Mountains along the Arizona/New Mexico border and in the Baboquivari Mountains southwest of Tucson, Arizona, respectively. The monitoring efforts in the Baboquivari Mountains expanded in 2001 to become the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project when the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Bronx Zoo and the Phoenix Zoo funded houndsman Jack Childs to conduct a more in-depth monitoring effort along the Arizona/Sonora border. The collaborative Arizona-New Mexico Jaguar Conservation Team supported the research and the Arizona Game and Fish Department furnished film, batteries, and developing for additional camera stations.

MONITORING INTENSIFIES

On December 9, 2001 the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project photographed an adult male jaguar in Arizona about 6.5 km north of the Mexican border. On August 7, 2003, 20 months later, the same jaguar was photographed again at another monitoring station 6 km further north in the same mountain range. It was determined that both detections were of the same individual because the distinguishing spot patterns on the animals right side were identical in both photographs.

During the summer of 2004 the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project expanded when the Wildlife Department at Humboldt State University joined the team and graduate student Emil McCain began his Masters Thesis research on the project. The monitoring effort increased in intensity from 13 camera stations to 30, and the search effort encompassed a larger area of more remote and inaccessible mountains. On June 24, 2004 fresh jaguar tracks were documented at a watering hole about 6 km northeast of the site where the first jaguar photograph was taken and 6 km southeast of the second site. Between August and December 2004 the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project documented 13 additional jaguar photographs at these new camera sites. To date the project has documented 18 jaguar events, 16 photographs and three sets of tracks.

PRESENT

This project has produced the only current biological information available on jaguars in the northern extent of their range over the past half century. This information will prove invaluable to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Department and will assist them in making responsible management decisions regarding jaguar conservation and habitat protection. Although we have been very successful in documenting the presence of jaguars in the United States, policy makers are still lacking enough information to know exactly how much and what type of habitat the jaguar needs, and therefore what needs to be protected to ensure jaguar recovery in the United States. Now that we have confirmed the presence of these animals in Arizona, it is critical to expand our search efforts to more comprehensively monitor Arizona jaguars. At this point we have recorded their presence in a very small area; however it remains unknown to what extent they roam and how much space they need. It is of utmost importance to better understand exactly where these animals are living and what comprises the entirety of their territories. In order for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Arizona Game and Fish Department to provide the necessary protection for the jaguar, we must first know what areas it uses and what habitats it needs to recover and reclaim its reign in the Southwestern United States.