In southern Arizona, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, a heat-sensitive remote surveillance camera was recently triggered by a warm body. But it wasn't an illegal immigrant in search of a job, or a courier in the drug trade. It was a jaguar (Panthera onca). The photograph, taken on August 7, represents the second time in three years that the big cat has been imaged in the U.S. and it raises an intriguing question: Are jaguars seeking U.S. residency? The southwestern U.S. as far north as the Grand Canyon in Arizona is part of the jaguar's historic range, but since the 1960s sightings of the big cats have occurred at a rate of only about once every ten years. Wildlife biologists and conservationists believe jaguars largely abandoned the U.S. owing to increased pressure from sprawling development and killing by ranchers seeking to protect their livestock. "But in last seven years we've had three animals documented here in Arizona, one photographed twice" said Bill Van Pelt, a biologist with the Arizona Game and Fish Department in Phoenix.

In 1996, two hunters independently reported jaguar sightings, which led to development of the Jaguar Conservation Team, a group composed of state wildlife agencies, ranchers, and conservationists interested in the cat's U.S. presence. "Those two sightings woke a need for some conservation measures, and since then we've been actively looking for them," said Jack Childs, a wildlife researcher in Tucson, Arizona, who sighted one of the jaguars in 1996.

View: Full Article | Source: National Geographic