Only known wild jaguar in United States seen roaming in Arizona mountains

“This is the only known jaguar now in the United States”.

“We use our specially trained scat detection dog and spent three years tracking in rugged mountains, collecting data and refining camera sites”, Chris Bugbee, a biologist with Conservation CATalyst, the preservation group that captured the video, said in a statement released by the Center for Biological Diversity.

The video footage shows a jaguar padding its way through the brush of the Santa Rita Mountains and climbing nimbly over rocks along a flowing stream.

The open-pit copper mine will measure a mile-wide and a half-mile deep and it is planned for 30 miles south of Tuscon in the Santa Rita Mountains: the exact location of El Jefe’s habitat.

Conservationists don’t know where El Jefe’s mother may be, but they say he first popped up in the Whetstone Mountains in 2011 when he was about 3 years old.

Research showed that “El Jefe” – Spanish for “The Boss” – is an adult male jaguar in prime condition, and now the only known one in the United States after “Macho B” was euthanized for a trapping injury in 2009. “Arizona should be poised to harbor and protect both jaguars and ocelots as they continue to disperse out from Sonora”, said Bugbee.

El Jefe was named last fall by students at Felizardo Valencia Middle School in Tucson, whose mascot is a jaguar.

The videos of El Jefe were captured by Conservation CATalyst, an organization focused on conserving cats that the Center for Biological Diversity works with.

“We need to get the message out that the only cat left is threatened by this proposed mine”, says Neils. “At ground zero for the mine is the intersection of three major wildlife corridors that are essential for jaguars moving back into the U.S.to reclaim lost territory”. Jaguars are more common in Mexico.

Conservation CATalyst and the Center for Biological Diversity released new video today of the only known wild jaguar now in the United States.

Jaguars roamed the Southwest, but they disappeared 150 years ago because of habitat loss and predator control programs aimed at protecting livestock. A hunter shot and killed the last verified female jaguar in the U.S.in 1963 in northern Arizona.