The tension around jaguars feeds into a broader urban-rural divide over managing big predator species that is supercharged in the current political moment. Extrapolating from surveys of values related to nature and society, the study found domination prevalent across the rural US, whereas mutualism was concentrated in cities. A county-level map seen below showing domination in red and mutualism in blue could easily be mistaken for the US presidential results. And the study authors warn the divide is just as bitter.
But the final vote was a narrow win, with support concentrated in the urban Front Range corridor. Rural residents had turned against the measure over the perceived threat wolves could pose to homes and ranching.
Indeed, wolves continue to be a political touchpoint across the West. In his own work in Mexico and South America, for example, Quigley meets one-on-one with any ranchers who might be affected by jaguars to get buy-in from within the community. In the meantime, the groups behind the CANRA proposal are focused on establishing the habitat, above all, and working with local tribes, state governments, and landowner groups to build the case for reintroduction. Based on other reintroduction efforts, it would likely be a mix of federal, state, and private funding.
Two forthcoming studies — one on climate change and the other a population viability study — will help supplement the scientific record as the cultural work continues, according to Sanderson.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The controversial plan to bring jaguars back to the US Bald eagles, bison, and Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email.
A male jaguar photographed by motion-detection cameras in the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona in Courtesy of BLM The proposal calls for transplanting jaguars from existing populations in northern Mexico or Argentina to land owned by Native American tribes and the US federal government. The rise and fall and rise of the jaguar Jaguars prowled the southwest for millennia.
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Jaguars once roamed throughout much of Arizona and New Mexico, even as far north as the Grand Canyon. But throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, hunters exterminated the U. But with a breeding population in adjacent Sonora, Mexico, that numbers up to , cats from their ranks are increasingly wandering north into Arizona. At least seven male jaguars have been seen in the southern part of the state in the last 25 years—including one that resides in southeastern Arizona—and another handful have been spotted in Mexico close to the border over the same period.
Now researchers have captured videos of a new jaguar on a ranch in Sonora, a couple miles south of the spot where Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico intersect—and where border wall construction ceased only two months ago. This rare sighting came as a joy to Ganesh Marin , a doctoral student at University of Arizona and a National Geographic explorer who studies local wildlife abundance and movement using a grid of about a hundred camera traps at this ranch.
Finding a juvenile so close to the border suggests that the breeding range of the species may be extending north as the cats reclaim old territory, says Gerardo Ceballos , a researcher with the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Endangered Species Act.
Meanwhile, a study published March 16 in the journal Oryx estimates that much of central Arizona and New Mexico is prime jaguar habitat, and could conservatively support a population of or more animals. This contrasts with the estimated carrying capacity previously produced by the U. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is significantly lower. The sighting—and the study—emphasize the importance of keeping wildlife corridors open between the United States and Mexico, a vast contiguous expanse of habitat for many creatures, including jaguars, Marin says.
Throughout , the Trump administration constructed more than miles of the foot-tall border wall in Arizona, cutting off some of these corridors. Some of the primary connections through mountainous areas remain intact, albeit degraded and shrunk. Learn more: The U. The history of the borderlands is peppered with tales of jaguars, sometimes known as los tigres. In , a trapper killed a female jaguar in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona, before selling her two cubs as pets.
In , a predator control agent for the U. Around seven jaguars have been documented in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico since Arizona, New Mexico and other parts of the southwestern U.
Facebook Twitter Email. Rare jaguar spotted in mountains of Arizona. Conservationists work to keep jaguar populations viable. This connectivity is something the United States has been trying to foster over the past few years especially.
The U. Fish and Wildlife Services established a recovery plan in early designed to host six jaguars in a strip of territory along the border. The hope is to spur discussions about national conservation efforts with officials of Southwestern states. But the effort to protect these jaguars while establishing connectivity exists on both sides of the border.
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