New jaguar spotted at the Arizona-Mexico border

[FfFfFfFF 58,070]

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.S. population of North America’s only big cat.

But with a breeding population in adjacent Sonora, Mexico, that numbers up to 200, cats from their ranks are increasingly wandering north into Arizona.

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.

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. “It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” he says.

Analysis of videos taken by four cameras between December 2020 and March 2021 show the jaguar was the same young male, which scientists have named El Bonito (“the beautiful”).

Jaguars are ecologically important not merely because they are top predators, but because protecting land could help many other more common species, such as black bears, beavers, and mountain lions, Marin says.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/jaguar-near-arizona-border-wall-mexico?utm_source=reddit.com

[Mindblown 6,744]

Jaguar in the United States? Excuse me no. 

[Vicixs 3,559]

Great! Now leave it alone

[vyniildisk 12,689]

kitty kitty kitty, tsshh tshhh, kitty!

aww they are so cute 

[CannaeDrive 3,412]

There should be more of them big cats ngl.

[venuspop 807]

omg look at that cutie 

[HuffsAhoy 7,433]

This is low key terrifying, ngl  But I am happy to see this species making a slow comeback

[ChicaSkas 24,036]

Fantastic. Now hopefully my fellow Muricans aren't gonna chase it with guns

 

[sarahb 17,185]

Good thing they're not being blocked by a wall.