Jaguar Reintroduction in the United States

[Balam]

Supplementary article by the leading author of the study on post #8 below, and excerpt from another WCS article:

Just Add Jaguars: Scientists identify large swath of potential habitat for iconic big cat in Arizona and New Mexico

A team of scientists have identified a wide swath of habitat in Arizona and New Mexico that they say could eventually support more than 150 jaguars.

Publishing their results in Oryx—The International Journal of Conservation, the team says that the central mountains of the two states, which they call the “Central Arizona/New Mexico Recovery Area” or CANRA, offers new opportunities for the United States to contribute to recovery of the species.

Authors of the study include scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, Wildlands Network, Pace University, U.S. Geological Survey, Universidad Autonoma de Queretaro, Bird’s Eye View, IUCN, and Bordercats Working Group.

The multidisciplinary group of scientists compared 12 habitat models for jaguars in Arizona and New Mexico and found an area of habitat the size of South Carolina far from the southern border with Mexico. This area was not considered in the USFWS recovery plan for the jaguar released in 2019, but the Service left open the possibility of revising the recovery plan boundaries as new information, such as this study, becomes available. 

Jaguars are now considered an Endangered Species across their range (including the U.S.) and state-level protections exist in Arizona and New Mexico. Over the last two decades, a number of male jaguars have been photographed in the mountains south of I-10.

Jaguars are often associated with tropical habitats such as the Amazon and Central America, but historically they were found as far north as the Grand Canyon.  The last jaguar north of the Interstate-10 highway was killed by a U.S. government hunter in 1964.

Said Eric W. Sanderson, WCS Senior Conservation Ecologist: “There is a lot more potential jaguar habitat in the United States than was previously realized. These findings open a new opportunity for jaguar conservation in North America that could help address threats from habitat loss, climate change, and border infrastructure.”

Bryan Bird, Director for Southwest Programs at Defenders of Wildlife and one of the study’s co-authors, said: “This fresh look at jaguar habitat in the U.S. identifies a much larger area that could support many more of these big cats. This expanded area of the Southwest is 27 times larger than the current designated critical habitat. We hope these findings will inspire renewed cooperation and result in more resident jaguars in the U.S.”

Juan Carlos Bravo, Wildlands Network’s Mexico and Borderlands Program Director and a co-author of the study, said: “Jaguar recovery in the northern extreme of its range is of interest to both the U.S. and Mexico, and having this analysis — which clears previous misconceptions about available habitat — is indispensable to make informed decisions for international efforts.”

Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a co-author of the study, said: “It should come as no surprise that the forested Mogollon Plateau, which teems with deer, elk and javelina, now has scientific recognition as good jaguar habitat. This region was the last stand for breeding jaguars after their elimination elsewhere in the U.S., and these beautiful cats could thrive here again.”

Recent and historical jaguar observations in the US and northern Mexico can be queried at jaguardata.info

Mogollon Rim:

*This image is copyright of its original author

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Jaguar habitat rediscovered in Arizona and New Mexico

By Eric W. Sanderson, 16th March 2021

Jaguars are renowned as top predators that roam tropical habitats such as the rainforests of the Amazon and Central America, but jaguars are quite catholic in their habitat requirements. These large cats also live in mountains, flooded grasslands, dry scrub, and pine forests, and deserts. What jaguars need is: prey, of which they are not picky, eating over 80 different species; cover in which to hunt and hide their cubs; water to drink; and freedom from persecution by people.

Few people may be aware that during the last century jaguars ranged as far north as the Grand Canyon in Arizona and the northern Rio Grande in New Mexico. In the 19th century jaguars were shot by Texas rangers north of San Antonio. Harder to believe but nonetheless intriguing observations come from California, Colorado, northern Texas/Oklahoma and Louisiana.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The historical evidence for jaguars in the United States is strongest in Arizona and New Mexico. Multiple photographs, skins, skulls and first-hand accounts attest to jaguars living there during the first half of the 20th century, as collected in Dave Brown and Carlos Lopez-Gonzalez’s 2001 book, Borderland Jaguars/Tigres de lal Frontera. As the Arizona Territory was settled, jaguars were hunted in the mountains north of Tucson and in the Sky Island ranges to the south and east. Cattlemen, shepherds, and government agents shot, trapped, and poisoned jaguars as well as other predators, such as Mexican wolves. The last jaguar killed in central Arizona was killed in 1964 by a US government hunter north of the Interstate-10 highway—a major thoroughfare traversing the southern part of the country. For a time, it seemed that jaguars had been lost from the USA for good.

As a result, when the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service first listed jaguars on the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1972, jaguars were only protected south of the border, in Central and South America. Discussions, court cases, and scientific articles encouraged a more expansive view. Policy about jaguars swayed back and forth between dismissive and supportive regarding the possibilities for jaguar conservation in the USA, but the arguments were mostly theoretical: jaguars, always elusive and magnificently camouflaged, were practically non-existent north of the border.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Not that long ago, jaguars lived in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, as shown in these 20th century newspaper clips. Photos: Laura Paulson (left & right), Carlos Lopez González (middle)

That changed in 1996, when a rancher hunting for cougars in the Peloncillo Mountains found himself face to face with a jaguar in Arizona. Warner Glenn’s and subsequent photographs, unmistakably of a jaguar in arid terrain, intensified interest in the species. They were the first photographs of a live jaguar ever taken in the USA.  Scientific studies followed. Over the last 3 decades, camera traps have photographed a handful of male jaguars in the mountains south of Interstate-10, including pictures as recent as January 2021.

The detection of jaguars in the USA also led to a flurry of scientific activity to predict their potential distribution. Over the last 25 years, researchers created nine models using a variety of different inputs, techniques and starting presumptions, which we discovered after a carefully-constructed, systematic review. Our team, a multidisciplinary group of scientists, created three additional models. Despite differences in approach, variable selection and method, all 12 models pointed to a similar conclusion: an 82,442 km2 contiguous area of potential jaguar habitat, on the edge of the Colorado Plateau known as the Central Arizona/New Mexico Recovery Area.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Jaguars still live in the USA but at the moment are limited to mountainous habitat in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, south of the Interstate-10 freeway. These photographs of jaguars in the USA were captured by remotely-triggered cameras over the last decade. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southwest Region and the University of Arizona

We found that there is a lot more potential habitat for the jaguar in the USA than was previously recognized: a habitat block equivalent to the size of South Carolina awaits the jaguar’s return.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service considered Interstate-10 to be the de facto northernmost extent of jaguar range in the Americas in their 2018 recovery plan (released in 2019) for the species. South of Interstate-10, they estimated that are there is only enough habitat for six jaguars.  North of Interstate-10, using their same model, we estimate there may be room for an eventual population of 90–150 individuals.

The Central Arizona/New Mexico Recovery Area covers more territory than other important jaguar conservation units in Central America and South America, such as the Selva Maya of Guatemala and the forests around Iguaçu Falls in Brazil, both of which have viable, self-sustaining populations. Potential habitat is not the same as occupied habitat, however. How or when jaguars could ever return to this habitat block remains an open question.

The population of jaguars closest to the USA that includes both males and females currently inhabits the thornscrub of Sonora, Mexico, 80–100 km south of the international boundary. Ongoing conservation and recovery of this population is critical to jaguar conservation and depends on collaboration and knowledge-sharing between the USA, Mexico and other countries.

*This image is copyright of its original author

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Recovery Plan specifically called for conservation work in Sonora and other parts of the Northwestern Jaguar Recovery Unit, as presumably the animals found in the USA today are dispersing males from this area. This recommendation was an important conclusion of the recovery plan, which is both appropriate and necessary.

Yet the focus on the Sonoran population and other populations south of the border should not preclude acknowledging that the Central Arizona/New Mexico Recovery Area offers new opportunities for recovery of the species in the USA in the long-term.

Conservation requires patience and steadfastness. But if conservationists forget that jaguars once lived in central Arizona and New Mexico, then who will remember? That is why we wrote this article. Reply