Spotting a Jaguar No Easy Task

the secretive Jaguar

The private cat has been spotted in Arizona, but only rarely in recent years

TEXT BY RICHARD MAHLER PHOTOGRAPHS BY WARNER GLENN

THEY HAVE BEEN CALLED, in apt comparison to the famously shy movie star, “the Greta Garbo of cats.” Even biologists who study jaguars in their prime habitat may go months, even years, without seeing a specimen in the flesh. In Arizona, where a mere glimpse is headline news, only a handful of people have ever encountered a wild jaguar, one of the state’s rarest animals.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime event,” concedes Jack Childs, a retired Tucson land surveyor who was among a party of four Arizonans who observed a male jaguar in the rugged Baboquivari Mountains southwest of Tucson on August 31, 1996. “Our hounds bayed him into a juniper,” recalls Childs, who captured the animal on videotape. “Eventually the jag seemed to get bored, and he just laid his head down to go to sleep.” Although the Arizona Game and Fish Department has been flooded with reports ever since, it has verified only seven other jaguar sightings in recent years, along with one set of tracks

Although the Arizona Game and Fish Department has been flooded with reports ever since, it has verified only seven other jaguar sightings in recent years, along with one set of tracks verified last June. One male has been photographed three separate times by remote surveillance cameras at undisclosed locations near the international border. Last fall those cameras photographed that same male, plus a second male. A third male jaguar was tracked and photographed by rancher Warner Glenn on March 7, 1996, along the Arizona-New Mexico border. Glenn, who had hunted in the area for 60 years, spotted the jaguar in the Peloncillo Mountains and published his experience in a book, Eyes of Fire: Encounter with a Borderlands Jaguar (Treasure Chest Books, Tucson, 1996), along with the photos he had snapped furiously, the first ones shot of a jaguar in the wild in the United States in recent memory.

"I'm sure the jaguars we've been seeing are random individuals from Mexico," says Childs, who oversees a network of 35 surveillance cameras monitoring the passage of large animals. "I've found absolutely no evidence of a breeding population of jaguars in our state during the eight years I've been studying them."

Bill Van Pelt, a wildlife biologist with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, agrees that jaguars are likely coming from Mexico to hunt or to expand their territory.

"The nearest known breeding pair," he says, "is about 135 miles south of Doug-las." Since 2003, Van Pelt's agency has been working with a team of scientists and local authorities to determine the migration patterns of Sonora's estimated 100 remaining jaguars.

"No one knows their range for sure," says Van Pelt, "but it is probably as large as that of mountain lions, which are known to travel 200 miles or more."

According to research at Arizona State University conducted by biologist David Brown, there have been at least 59 confirmed jaguar sightings in Arizona since 1900. Dur-ing that time, the species has been recorded as far west as Prescott, east to the White Moun-tains and north to Grand Canyon National Park. The most recent sightings, however, have been within 50 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

University conducted by biologist David Brown, there have been at least 59 confirmed jaguar sightings in Arizona since 1900. Dur-ing that time, the species has been recorded as far west as Prescott, east to the White Moun-tains and north to Grand Canyon National Park. The most recent sightings, however, have been within 50 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Secretive by nature, jaguars roam mainly at night, preying upon deer, javelinas and smaller mammals. Long despised by ranch-ers, they will sometimes kill livestock. They are the largest cats in the Americas and like their close relatives, leopards, have golden coats dappled by patterns of black spots and rosettes that are as unique as fingerprints. Unlike mountain lions, which can only scream and growl, jaguars have the capa-city to roar. Commonly associated with tropical jungles, jaguars also are found in deserts, swamps, grasslands and pine forests from Mexico to Argentina.

Unlike mountain lions, which can only scream and growl, jaguars have the capa-city to roar. Commonly associated with tropical jungles, jaguars also are found in deserts, swamps, grasslands and pine forests from Mexico to Argentina.

"It's always been a peripheral animal here," believes ASU's Brown, noting that there have been no documented female jaguars in Arizona since at least 1963. Brown, who coauthored Borderland Jaguars: Tigres de la Frontera (University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 2001) with Mexican researcher Carlos Lopez Gonzalez, says expert opinion is divided on when or whether jaguars were well-established state residents. Historical records confirm the species has been seen throughout the Southwest with encounters verified since 1850 in California, New Mexico and Texas. During pre-Columbian times, the cats may have roamed as far as Oregon, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

"The only reason the jaguar doesn't breed today in Arizona is because ranchers and government agents systematically wiped them out," contends Michael Robinson of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. His group sued the federal government in 2003, arguing that it had not done enough to protect the jaguar, an officially recognized endangered species in the United States and most other countries in the Western Hemisphere. Under terms of a settlement of that lawsuit last September, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agreed to make a determination by July 2006 on whether there are critical habitat areas considered important to the jaguar's recovery.

Since 1997, a coalition of government agencies, nonprofit groups, scientists and a private citizens' group called the Jaguar Conservation Team has developed its own regional conservation plan for jaguars. The group gathers biannually and disseminates information about the cats with the goal of strengthening their protection. With the team's help, the first sanctuary for border-area jaguars has been established in the heart of its Sonoran breeding grounds.

"It's incredibly exciting to have these magnificent animals in our state," says Van Pelt. "If anybody in Arizona sees a jaguar, we definitely want to hear from them." Al EDITOR'S NOTE: If you spot a jaguar, call the Arizona Game and Fish Department at (602) 789-3573. For information about the book Eyes of Fire: Encounter with a Borderlands Jaguar, visit the Web site www. jaguarbook.com.