Center for Biological Diversity


For Immediate Release, December 7, 2016

Contact: Randy Serraglio, (520) 784-1504

New Jaguar Photographed in Southern Arizona

TUCSON, Ariz.— A previously undetected jaguar has been photographed recently in the Huachuca Mountains of southern Arizona, near the town of Sierra Vista. The young male was caught on a Fort Huachuca trail camera and posted on Facebook by the Cochise County Boy Scouts of America. This is the first confirmed jaguar in the Huachucas.

“We’ve been expecting another jaguar to pop up in southern Arizona for some time now,” said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Congratulations to Fort Huachuca for their good luck in capturing this beautiful animal on film.”

This is the first jaguar detected in the United States since a mature male created an international sensation when he was captured on video about a year ago. That cat was named “El Jefe” by Tucson schoolchildren after living in a nearby mountain range for more than four years.

“Jaguars will keep returning to southern Arizona to repopulate their ancestral homelands,” said Serraglio. “Jaguars belong here, and if we protect the wide-open spaces they need, they will thrive here again. El Jefe has proven that.”

Jaguars roamed throughout the southern United States for thousands of years prior to European settlement. Over the past century, they were wiped out by predator control programs, primarily as a subsidy to the livestock industry.

“We’ve lost a lot of jaguar habitat in the U.S. over the past century, but millions of acres of prime wildlands remain,” said Serraglio.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.


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