http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/200...aguar20-ON.html

Sleek animal, said Macho A

He is kinda on the small side for the third largest cat speices in the world... most cougars are bigger then him.

He is an old man jaguar, so I would suspect that some of his muscle tone has diminished over the years - still, 118 lbs. is no little kitty. At approximately 16 years old, he is the oldest documented jaguar in the world! Neat.

More puddy-tat than I'd wanna see in the brush. The fun part to me is they are finally acknowlegding that the damned things are back after years of denying or calling the occasional sighting a "fluke" as they did to us back in the '80's.

Read in the paper the other day that he was "put down"......had kidney problems....

Haven't talked with Emil for quite awhile....

Ooh, that's sad. I'm sorry to hear that about him.

Beautiful cat! It does seem a little small perhaps though, the cougars in GA are around that same size or larger full grown. I love the coloring/patterns on the jaguars. Absolutely beautiful animal.

Indeed that jaguar lived a LONG time in the wild. Amazing.

This group was formed by the local ranchers with help to the north-ranging jaguars in mind.
Warner Glenn published a pictorial called "Eyes of Fire" documenting his interaction with a jaguar on the US side, all the while being told by the experts that there were no Jaguars north of the border. I love stories like this.

http://www.malpaiborderlandsgroup.org/

http://www.malpaiborderlandsgroup.org/mysp...p?speciesID=35;

Sad but humane ending to the life of one old cat.


http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/pr...3-04-2009b.html


For Immediate Release, March 4, 2009
Contacts:

Michael Robinson, (575) 313-7017
Randy Serraglio, (520) 784-1504

Scientist: Capture Contributed to Jaguar's Death

TUCSON, Ariz.— In an interview published today in the Arizona Daily Star, Dr. Dean Rice of the Phoenix Zoo stated that stress from the capture and tranquilizing of Macho B contributed to the jaguar’s kidney problem, resulting in the decision to euthanize him Monday.

Dr. Rice is the Phoenix Zoo’s executive vice president and is also one of two veterinarians who performed the necropsy. Dr. Rice concluded that Macho B likely had a deteriorating kidney prior to being captured and tranquilized. However, the stress of the capture and the passing of the tranquilization drugs through the ailing kidney caused extreme stress to the endangered animal, playing a key role in its death.

“Any medications, any drugs we take, no matter whether you are human or animal…if you give them sedation and the kidneys are not working,� the sedative can have a negative effect, Dr. Rice is quoted as stating.

The Center for Biological Diversity called today for an independent scientific review by a federally appointed recovery team to determine whether the capture and handling of the jaguar took into account the age of the animal and the possibility that it would be more vulnerable to kidney dysfunction or other health problems. Such a review is needed to determine whether adjustments to the protocol for capturing and handling these magnificent animals are needed, or indeed whether capturing jaguars in the first place is an acceptable risk given their small numbers. A federally appointed recovery team would be an excellent body to conduct such a review.

“We hope Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will appoint a recovery team for the jaguar with their first task being an investigation into the causes of Macho B’s death and needed actions to ensure this tragedy is not repeated,� said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Authorities are now counting on an analysis of tissue samples of the dead jaguar to provide clues to how long Macho B had kidney problems. On Tuesday the Phoenix Zoo sent the samples to the Arizona Veterinary Diagnostic Lab at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Sad story... but on the bright side... where there is one... there are usually more!!!!

All ready talked about...

I wonder if jaguars and cougars can interbreed.

"We hope Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar will appoint a recovery team for the jaguar with their first task being an investigation into the causes of Macho B’s death and needed actions to ensure this tragedy is not repeated,� said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity."


Exactly what was the tragedy? A wild Jaguar lives a very long life and dies of internal organ failure, basically of old age? How can the "tragedy" not be repeated the way Mother Nature designed? Life is terminal. Center for Bio-Diversity is already positioning this as a 'tragedy' for political purposes.

From Wikipedia:
"The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) based in Tucson, Arizona, is a nonprofit membership organization with approximately 180,000 members, known for its work protecting endangered species through legal action and scientific petitions."

Trick, they are probably referring to the fact that the capture and administering of tranquilizer played a big role in worsening his kidney damage, thus Macho B having to be euthanized.

(My emphasis.)

Try stupidity before politics. A simple look at the teeth and blood test before collaring would have told the dopes the animal was destined to die based on age, weight, etc. and that it would have been folly to "research" N=1 this particular solitary specimen. And apparently the stress hormones and handling affected the degree to which this drug was processed/excreted by kidney,
in a negative way.

They could have opted not to collar that one after the examination.....might have made a difference in this single animals life. There is a point
where research is simply a word for got to do something to get paid, whether its the "right" thing to do or not. What's so political about protecting
endangered native cats such as this? There will come a time when we will be held accountable for the way we treat our native wildlife that are on the cusp of extinction
And, oh, spare me the diatribe about species are extinguished every day, that may be the case but the rate of extinction is accelerating. And yeah, I do look on the bright
side and realize where there is one, there is likely more than one. When executive orders quash public law, it is time for a change.....off the soapbox, long live jaguars in
the U.S. of A.

Read the article again.

A very rare and important endangered species died, in part apparently, because it was captured, drugged, and handled, not just because of "old age". Regardless of what agenda the CBD does or doesn't have, it is perfectly legit to call for a review of protocol in a case like this. For example could the vets have used drugs that were safer for an animal that was likely to have kidney problems (e.g. an old cat)? Probably not, but it is a fair question. Additionally, did the animal even need to be captured in the first place? (I have no idea personally, I'm not up on this program.)

But the CBD's real issue is that we have no proper recovery plan (which might have altered this outcome?), as explained here:

Apeman, I hate to say it(as I am general pretty favorable toward wildlife research) but the first thing that I thought of when I read that was "I bet the capture just a few days before played a major part in this). That being said, what I understand is that this particular capture was inadvertent, in that it was part of a cougar/bear study. In hindsight, the cat likely would have survived it at least for the time being, had they simply covered it and released it from the snare without administering any drugs...but who's to say for sure. Perhaps the stress of capture alone may have done it, although the note about the drugs affecting the liver is pretty straight forward. Pretty tough call.

from KPHO

"Photographs taken in 1996 estimated his age at 2 to 3 years old, making him between 15 and 16 when he was euthanized. Previously the oldest known jaguar in the wild was 13 years old."

So, if F&G hadn't "damaged" this animal because of the stress/tranquilizing, would it have lived to 25 years, 40 years? I don't see the logical X = Y that others are seeing. But hey, it's all conjecture no matter what.

I personally view this animal's life and, yes, its death as a victory of sorts. His existence shows there are conditions present in our wildlands to provide a long lifespan for this particular species. I am excited by that, because all I am ever being told is how horrible the wildlands are because of human existence and this Big Cat's long years proved a bit of that pessimism wrong. I am hopeful for the future of wildlife now. I am thankful Macho B existed, thrived and died where others would try to convince us was not possible. What else is out there that we are being told are no more or couldn't exist? hmmmmmmm.

Yes, you've got to have faith that if the environment could support that old cat, unbelievable age for such a good sized animal in harsh conditions too, there is a pretty good
chance there is enough out there to keep a relict population of them viable. Seems like the snares aren't real discriminating too. It is obvious the cat's death would've been imminent prob. minus any handling and anesthesia.

partial text of new communication from Center for Biological Diversity:
l

What a beautiful cat how many of them are left?

I sure hope they can preserve the species...

Oh, no, bipedalist, this is even worse than first suspected! How horrible that the euthanization was unnecessary. And it appears there was a bit of a cover up as well.

Do you have a link to the rest of the article?

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/286500

The Arizona Daily Star
Published: 03.29.2009

Did jaguar Macho B have to die?
Phoenix Zoo may have moved too fast to euthanize him, UA pathologist says
By Tony Davis
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
"We recognize that in veterinary medicine, there are almost as many opinions as there are doctors and attorneys. In this case, you've got the guys in the room up to their elbows in data on this animal. We asked them to give their best professional opinion." Terry Johnson, Game and Fish's endangered-species coordinator
Macho B may not have had chronic kidney failure after all.

Tissue samples from the last known wild jaguar in the United States showed no sign of kidney disease, the diagnosis Phoenix Zoo veterinarians made in deciding to euthanize him.
A pathologist at the UA's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which reviewed the tissue samples, said authorities may have moved too fast to euthanize the animal early this month. Bloodwork state Game and Fish officials said showed "off the charts" kidney failure could actually have indicated dehydration, said Sharon Dial of the veterinary lab.
The zoo should have kept the animal on intravenous fluids for 24 to 48 hours before euthanizing it, Dial said. State Game and Fish officials and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials agreed to euthanize the animal about five hours after he first got fluids. Zoo officials made the recommendation based on blood test results.
Dial said it is unproven "dogma" among some medical experts that blood levels alone can be used to "make a definitive statement that this animal will not survive." The zoo didn't have enough information to determine whether the jaguar researchers named Macho B needed to be euthanized, she said.
"Nothing is absolute. There is nothing to say that he absolutely would have recovered, but I can say by looking at the kidneys that there is no structural reason why he would not have," Dial said last week. "I've looked at a lot of cat kidneys, not jaguar kidneys. For a supposed 15-year-old cat, he had damned good looking kidneys."
It's possible Macho B had short-term, acute kidney failure that didn't show up in the tissues, another lab pathologist said. But the lack of signs of chronic kidney failure in those tissues probably means the jaguar didn't have kidney failure at the time he was captured in mid-February, said pathology resident Jennifer Johnson.
"Animals with chronic renal failure usually don't have their coats in good shape," Johnson said "They start to develop muscle wasting or atrophy. They do not look healthy and hearty."

Shortly after the jaguar's death, Phoenix Zoo veterinarian Dean Rice said the animal probably had kidney failure when he was initially captured that would have killed him within two months — although the capture probably aggravated the condition. Snared accidentally Macho B's death came 12 days after its original capture in the oak woodlands of Southern Arizona, near the Mexican border. Officials said the jaguar was snared accidentally by a research project tracking the movements of mountain lions and bears. He was fitted with a radio collar and released. But researchers tracking its movements by satellite data noticed he had slowed down significantly, had an abnormal gait and had lost weight. They recaptured it March 2 and took it to the Phoenix Zoo, where it was euthanized later that day.

A UA lab-produced report on the jaguar's tissue samples, which the Star obtained through a public-records request, is the first of three outside reviews of the case.
A federal wildlife lab in Madison, Wis., is analyzing the tissue samples. Both labs' conclusions and the tissues will go to Linda Munson, a specialist on large cats and a professor at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. She has agreed to review the data at no charge to the state.
"We encourage a full review of each and every part of the data, so we can provide the most complete review of what took place," said Terry Johnson, Game and Fish's endangered-species coordinator.

Once all that is done, Game and Fish will post all the findings on its Web site, officials said.
The UA report's author, lab director Gregory Bradley, declined to discuss its contents, saying the work was done for the zoo and is considered confidential. But pathologists who examined the tissue samples did talk, prompting a statement of outrage from Game and Fish.
Until all three reports are in, it is "unproductive and potentially irresponsible" to discuss one piece of the findings individually, Game and Fish said in a statement sent to the Star..
"It is outrageous, unprofessional and speculative of individuals from the Arizona Veterinary Diagnostic Lab not leading the case to comment and offer opinions based on very incomplete information. Those individuals from the vet diagnostic lab had no involvement with the evaluation and treatment of Macho B when he was alive, and so their comments are not valid or appropriate," the Game and Fish statement said.

Phoenix Zoo officials referred questions about Macho B's death to Arizona Game and Fish, which defended the zoo veterinarians' recommendation to euthanize the cat.
"We recognize that in veterinary medicine, there are almost as many opinions as there are doctors and attorneys," Terry Johnson said. "In this case, you've got the guys in the room up to their elbows in data on this animal. We asked them to give their best professional opinion."

Truth versus opinion
Sorting truth from opinion will be difficult because officials chose to perform a "cosmetic" necropsy rather than a full one, outside experts said. The zoo conducted the less invasive procedure at the request of the wildlife service and the Game and Fish Department to leave the skin intact for an as-yet-undecided future use, Terry Johnson said. In a cosmetic necropsy, authorities make careful incisions so the skin can be salvaged, he said.
Arizona Game and Fish is considering using the hide to create a "live mount" of Macho B to be exhibited for educational purposes, according to an e-mail from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supervisor Steve Spangle, obtained through a public records request.
Mark Plunkett, a taxidermist in the Verde Valley, skinned Macho B's carcass and sent the hide to a tanner to insure its preservation for storage and for any future use, Johnson said. Once the analysis of Macho B's death is complete, the department will work with the Fish and Wildlife Service to decide how to permanently archive the skin and other remains, he said.

Preserving the jaguar's body for use had trade-offs. A complete organ-system by organ-system necropsy would likely have provided better evidence about what led to its death, said David Jessup, a senior wildlife veterinarian for California Fish and Game. Tissue samples of the brain and spinal cord were not taken, for example, and they might have explained the jaguar's unusual movements in the days before he was recaptured March 2.

Oldest known wild jaguar
Macho B was the only one of four jaguars that have been photographed in Southern Arizona and southwest New Mexico since 1996 that was known to be still living in the wild. He was also the oldest known wild jaguar anywhere. At the time of its capture, state officials pegged its age at 15 to 16. The vet lab said the cat was 16 to 18.
The UA report offered these conclusions about the jaguar's tissues:
• The tissues examined didn't indicate significant kidney disease.
• A small area in one section of kidney tissue showed papillary necrosis — a kidney disorder in which all or part of collecting ducts entering the kidney die. That, along with the presence of mineral and salt deposits in the kidney's inner section, suggest "there was a degree of dehydration."
• The papillary necrosis and the mineral buildup suggest the animal had pre-renal azotemia, a condition in which blood doesn't flow through the kidneys and nitrogen-based wastes build up inside them.
• Sections of the kidneys known as tubules, an area where waste materials are concentrated into urine, showed mild to moderate dilation — a sign that cells there were farther apart than normal. But the dilation was probably brought about by intravenous fluids the cat had been receiving for five hours before its death, and wasn't significant.
Dial acknowledged that she didn't know how feasible it would be to keep a wild animal such as a jaguar on IV fluids for an extended period because it would not stay quiet and would become agitated under those circumstances.
"If he'd been a domestic cat, I don't think he would have been euthanized," she said.
As evidence that cats can survive acute renal failure, she pointed to a study published last year in the Journal of American Veterinary Medicine. It found that more than half of 32 domestic cats treated for acute renal failure at a New York City veterinary hospital over seven years survived. These cats' initial bloodwork showed average values slightly lower on key indicators than what Macho B had, but some of the cats had sharply higher values than the jaguar did.
The cats' survival rate depended to a large extent on their urine concentrations — the higher, the better their chances of survival, the study showed. Macho B's urine concentration was low, according to a urinalysis conducted shortly after his death. But many veterinarians say urinalyses conducted on cats with large amounts of IV fluid in them are not accurate because the fluids dilute urine concentrations.

Some vets less critical
Some veterinarians who examined the lab report and necropsy at the Star's request didn't disagree with Dial and Johnson, but were less critical of the agencies' decision to euthanize the jaguar. "It might have been nice if we could have kept it alive a little longer so that fluids could have worked. But the fact that the cat hadn't moved for awhile makes me think that something was going on and we don't know what that was — it could be a central nervous system problem or problems in other locations," said Lawrence McGill, a veterinary pathologist in Salt Lake City who is a spokesman for the American College of Veterinary Pathologists.
Ladan Mohammad-Zadeh, a Tucson veterinarian specializing in intensive care, said after reading the reports that she didn't consider Macho B's condition irreversible but she didn't want to second-guess the decision to euthanize. She said she believed the cat had acute kidney failure because the bloodwork showed extremely high levels on a number of crucial indicators, including phosphorous and potassium.

It can take a few days from the time of injury to the kidneys before the problems show up in tissues, said Mohammad-Zadeh, of Southern Arizona Veterinary Specialty and Emergency Center. The only way authorities could have known if the cat's problems were treatable would be to keep it on fluids for several days, she said.
Veterinarian Jessup, of the California Department of Fish and Game, said he doubted the zoo's euthanasia recommendation was based solely on the bloodwork because vets seldom make recommendations only on those numbers. "If this were the only problem, more aggressive fluid therapy, anti-inflammatory drugs and other medications might have helped. … I strongly suspect the animal was non-responsive or poorly responsive," he said, and that there is more information in other medical records at the zoo that contained a full rationale for euthanasia.

But in any case, said Dial, of the UA veterinary diagnostic lab, a full necropsy would have been best for a full understanding.
"The lack of total transparency in the handling of the case will not allow full understanding of what could have been done better" she said. "It is important to learn from every experience, to come together and improve the understanding of everyone involved so that there is no repeating of past mistakes."
"We recognize that in veterinary medicine, there are almost as many opinions as there are doctors and attorneys. In this case, you've got the guys in the room up to their elbows in data on this animal. We asked them to give their best professional opinion."
Terry Johnson, Game and Fish's endangered-species coordinator
Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet.com

Thanks, biped.

That's horribly sad! I hope he is not the very last one of his kind in North America.

Nah, he had company. They just need to get their act together and quit snaring unintended bounty. Right?!

If he was not moving around mutch, and at his age, it normaly means something is wrong... but ya it seemed that the killed him kinda fast.

More info. on court case over jaguar:


Arizona Daily Star, March 24, 2009

Jaguar court fight centers on habitat
By Tony Davis

A legal conflict over federal protection of the endangered jaguar boils down to where to push the hardest to save this embattled species.

Is the United States a key area for protecting the jaguar's habitat and bringing back its population? Or are conservation efforts better focused in the deserts and tropics of Latin America, south from northern Mexico into Brazil and Venezuela?

Attorneys for two environmentalists and the federal government argued the fine points of this debate on Monday before a federal judge in Tucson, using maps, studies, centuries of history and legal precedents to make their cases.

Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity are suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its refusal to declare prime habitat for the jaguar and to prepare a recovery plan to bring the species back from the endangered list.

Under federal law, both actions are usually required for endangered species. The service can opt out of either measure if it concludes they will not help conservation of the species.

U.S. District Judge John Roll did not say when he'll issue a ruling.

That the jaguar is not a fixture in this country today is hardly in dispute. Four individual U.S. jaguars have been confirmed to exist since 1996 — two each in Southern Arizona and southwest New Mexico. With the recent death of aging Macho B, who was caught in a trap then released with a tracking device in Southern Arizona, no jaguars are known to live in this country today.

But look at the jaguar's history in this country, attorneys for the two environmental groups said. They posted a map showing the jaguar's historical range dating back to the 19th century and beyond stretched into California, up to the Grand Canyon and east into Texas and Louisiana.

"There haven't been jaguars breeding recently because jaguars have been extirpated since then, not because of a lack of suitable habitat," said John Buse, an attorney for the center. "There was a very rigorous, carefully planned extermination process" to eliminate jaguars as threats to livestock, he said.

But Justice Department attorney Brett Grosko cited studies done of the jaguar in 2002 and 2005 that concluded that most if not all of the key conservation areas for the cat lay south of the Mexican border. The U.S. area that jaguars now frequent is a fraction of the cat's entire range, he said.

The court has to look at areas that are essential to conservation of jaguars as a species, not just potential habitat or suitable habitat, he said.

"When you look at the species as a whole, there's simply no area that meets the definition of critical habitat," Grosko said. "The area where jaguars now live in the U.S. is not enough to bring about recovery of the species."

But there's no substitute for a recovery plan to bring the jaguar off the endangered list, said Brian Segee, an attorney for Defenders.
"The recovery plan is the only part of the Endangered Species Act with a vision and a road map for taking a species off the list," he said.

Because the United States can't dictate to other governments how to protect the jaguar and its habitat, however, there's no way a recovery plan can bring back the jaguar species as a whole, Grosko countered.

The center's Buse, however, said that a recovery plan has no legal authority even in the United States -— it's simply a plan guiding future actions.

As the old saying goes:

"I'm from the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, and I'm here to HELP YOU...."

Arizona Daily Star, April 2, 2009

I baited jaguar trap, research worker says
Attorney general opens investigation into capture
Biologist denies telling worker to use scat to lure cat
State claimed Macho B's capture was inadvertent

By Tony Davis and Tim Steller

A trap the state says inadvertently snared the last known wild jaguar in the United States actually was baited with female jaguar scat, a member of the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project says.

Janay Brun told the Star that on Feb. 4 she put the scat at the site of the trap that two weeks later snared the male jaguar, known as Macho B. He was released but recaptured 12 days later, on March 2, because he showed signs of poor health. He was euthanized that afternoon.

Brun, 37, said she spoke to the Star because she thinks she helped cause the death of Macho B. "That jaguar meant a lot to me, and the fact that I mindlessly participated in this — it's a regret I'll have for the rest of my life."

She said she put the scat out in the presence of a state Game and Fish employee and Emil McCain, a biologist for the project. Brun alleges that McCain told her to place the scat at the site.

In two interviews with the Star this week, McCain vehemently denied her allegations. On Tuesday, he said Brun was fired from the project within the last month and was "completely unreliable in the past and untrustworthy." On Wednesday, he said the project ran out of money to pay her and that he was waiting to meet with Brun to tell her that.

The Star is not naming the Game and Fish employee Brun says was present when the scat was placed because it has not been able to reach the person.

The state Attorney General's Office has taken over an investigation of the circumstances of the jaguar's capture from Arizona Game and Fish. The game department, which announced the investigation Tuesday night, would not elaborate.

Project workers have used female jaguar scat to attract jaguars, McCain and others said this week. In 2004, the project began placing scat at locations of motion-sensing cameras where they were attempting to photograph jaguars, two former volunteers said. Jaguars and other cats use scents as a way to communicate, and female jaguar feces may attract male jaguars.

The borderlands jaguar project obtained female jaguar scat from the Phoenix Zoo in November and December of last year and from the Reid Park Zoo on Feb. 18 of this year, officials of both zoos told the Star this week. They said they understood the scat would be used to attract jaguars to cameras, not snares.

On Dec. 10 of last year, in an e-mail exchange forwarded by Brun, McCain sent her an e-mail saying he "just got a package of female … jag scat. Am thinking about placing it under a certain tree. You concur?"

"Si," Brun replied in an e-mail nearly an hour later.

Brun, of Arivaca, is out of state taking care of a family matter. But she said by phone and e-mail that she is speaking up because of the guilt she feels over the death of Macho B, whom she had been studying since she accidentally saw him in 1999.

"I felt guilty as all hell that I never questioned Emil enough, that I didn't go back and set the snares off or do something to get them out of there," said Brun, who has been a paid, part-time field technician for the jaguar detection project.

McCain denied having told Brun to place jaguar scat at the snare site and said he didn't know that she had done it.

"I'm extremely shocked that she would have said that or put scat in that snare," McCain said. "That snare was obviously for mountain lion and bear purposes, not for jaguar research."

Preparing for capture

E-mails obtained through public-records requests to Arizona Game and Fish and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service make clear that in the two weeks before Macho B was captured, McCain and others were preparing to capture a jaguar, even though subsequently officials emphasized the capture was inadvertent.

On Feb. 3, the Game and Fish employee and McCain received e-mails from veterinarians Roberto Aguilar and Sharon Deem suggesting what dosages of which drugs to use to sedate a jaguar.

McCain followed up on Feb. 5 with an e-mail to Deem and the unnamed Game and Fish employee clarifying that the employee "is not trying to catch a jaguar, but he is working on a mountain lion and black bear study in an area where he may inadvertently encounter a jaguar."

On Feb. 13, McCain wrote an e-mail to Blake Henke of North Star Science and Technology, who provided the radio collar that five days later was placed on Macho B.

"I wanted to thank you for getting the donated jaguar collar back to me so quickly," McCain wrote. "I also wanted you to know that we have again started trapping, and that there is fresh jaguar sign in the area."

On Feb. 16, McCain wrote to the Game and Fish employee and Henke: "At this point I think that for the week long trapping periods in the area where we may capture a jag, I think we should leave that collar (turned) on. Especailly (sic) given the remmoteness (sic) of the area, the lack of internet or phone access and the once in a lifetime change (sic) to collar a AZ jag, I think it is prudent to be 100% sure the collar is on."

Naive about traps

As Brun described the scent-baiting event, it occurred on a cold evening, after she, McCain and the Arizona Game and Fish employee had spent most of the day hiking in rugged hills northwest of Nogales, Ariz. The trio checked sites where the borderlands project had set camera traps to photograph passing jaguars and where Game and Fish had set snares for the mountain lion and bear project, Brun said.

"Emil said to me, 'Janay, put the scat over there,' " Brun recalled, referring to the area of the snare trap. "I was very naive about what the traps were. We'd used the scat before at the (camera) traps for two months in Macho B's territory last year and no jaguars had showed up. I didn't think he would be back in the area."

Photos of the jaguar taken on Jan. 21 had shown Macho B about 12 miles north of the eventual trap site, Brun and McCain said. A photo taken earlier that month had shown Macho B south of and much closer to the trap site.

On Feb. 21, three days after Macho B's capture, she said she went to the capture site and saw what she later described as a tree with jaguar claw and tooth marks running up and down it.

"They told the story of how he tried to climb the tree to pull the cable off his paw, only to be pulled down to the ground by the same cable," Brun wrote in an e-mail to the Star, describing the braided, metal cable that is used to snare an animal by a limb. "I found pieces of his claws, including a tip, embedded in the bark. The 'padding' on the cable was electrical tape. This is done to ensure that the cable does not slice through the animal's skin, bone, ligaments and joints as it fights to get free. The loop of the cable remained taut against his paw, cutting off circulation."

In his interview on Tuesday, McCain said Brun had "done a very dirty trick here to make this information public without talking about it first."

"This particular individual has been completely unreliable in the past and untrustworthy," McCain said.

Brun has worked as a volunteer and paid employee for the borderlands project since 2001. But McCain said the project fired Brun sometime in the past month.

Brun said she had no knowledge of having been fired. She provided the Star an e-mail exchange between McCain and her from March 19 and 20 in which he had asked her to go with him to Sonora for 10 days in April to set up to 20 cameras, presumably to photograph wildlife.

Brun was described as "an excellent tracker, putting in countless hours in the field each month," in the book "Ambushed on the Jaguar Trail," an account written by Jack Childs and his wife, Anna. He is co-founder and project coordinator for the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project. He and Anna, also a co-founder of the group, have been photographing jaguars in Southern Arizona since first catching Macho B on camera in 1996.

Jack Childs, of Amado, said he knew nothing of Brun's allegations until being told of them by a reporter. He declined to comment on them.

In their book, the Childs also thanked biologist McCain, and said, "His bulldog tenacity, tracking ability and vast knowledge of the wild critters of the region elevate the status of the project far beyond our expectations."

Brun was also described as "reliable, totally honest and very trustworthy" by a federal biologist for whom she had worked as an unpaid intern at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in 2001. Brun spent a year working for the refuge, surveying, releasing and tracking endangered masked bobwhite birds — "she was my right-hand person," recalled Mary Hunnicutt, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.

For years, many jaguar researchers and other wildlife biologists had wanted to capture a jaguar to learn more about its movements and other behavior, particularly because of concerns that a planned fence along the U.S.-Mexican border would disrupt its movements.

McCain was among the leading advocates of capture. Some environmental groups such as the Sky Island Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity have questioned or opposed capture on the grounds that its risks to the rare animal outweighed the benefits.

But from the moment that Game and Fish officials announced the Macho B capture, they have stuck to their account that the capture was accidental. They have said repeatedly that that trap and others in the area were set to trap black bears and mountain lions to study their movement patterns and migration corridors.

"While we didn't set out to collar a jaguar as part of the mountain lion and bear research project, we took advantage of an important opportunity," said Terry Johnson, endangered species coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department on Feb. 19, the day the state announced the capture.

The research project began using female jaguar scat obtained from the Reid Park Zoo in 2004, said two former volunteers for the group, Shiloh Walkosak and Sergio Avila.

Arizona is at the northern edge of the range of jaguars. In a paper published in the Journal of Mammalogy last year, Childs and McCain said the project "provides valuable new information" on the distribution, travel patterns, longevity and activity of jaguars in the borderlands.

Walkosak, a former Reid Park zookeeper and volunteer with the jaguar project, said she supplied McCain and the project with female jaguar scat that she collected when the zoo's jaguars were in their fertile periods.

"Using the scat was an ongoing part of the project up till when I left the zoo" in late 2006, she said. "We would give him (McCain) maybe the equivalent of one bowel movement for a large cat. He would use that for a very long period of time. He was literally putting a small smear on a rock in front of the camera."

Walkosak and Avila, who now researches jaguars for the Sky Island Alliance, said the project got more photos of jaguars when they began using female jaguar scat.

He and other project workers "used jaguar scat in 2004," Avila said. "That same year, as a result of this, we obtained four photographs of jaguars."

Said Walkosak: "Afterwards we consistently got photographs whenever that (scat) scent was used."

Reid Park Zoo administrator Susan Basford confirmed Walkosak's account, and Phoenix Zoo president Bert Castro acknowledged the zoo provided scat for photo sites last year.

Earlier this year, the zoo agreed to resume supplying jaguar scat to McCain and the project for use in attracting jaguars to the cameras, Basford said. McCain requested the scat to place at camera sites, not snares, she said.

Tucson Citizen, March 31, 2009

Ruling: Feds must rethink reasons for not helping jaguars
By B. Poole

A federal judge Tuesday ordered the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to revisit its decisions not to designate habitat and create a recovery plan for jaguars in the United States.

The decision in a lawsuit filed by Defenders of Wildlife and the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity comes just weeks after the agency killed what many believe was the last jaguar in Arizona.

U.S. District Judge John M. Roll ruled Fish & Wildlife did not "articulate a rational basis" for the decision not to designate critical habitat for the Western Hemisphere's largest cat. That decision must be revisited, Roll said in the 32-page ruling.

The agency also must go back to the drawing board and decide whether to draft a recovery plan, the judge ordered, setting Jan. 8 as the deadline.

Michael Robinson, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, was elated at the news.

"This is a lifeboat that has been extended to the jaguar, and it's a much needed lifeboat," Robinson said.

The court's decision does not mean a recovery plan and habitat designation are a foregone conclusion, said Fish & Wildlife spokesman Jeff Humphrey.

"They didn't order us to designate critical habitat or write a recovery plan," Humphrey said.

The ruling only requires that the agency decide again whether to do those things, he said.

This is the third time Fish & Wildlife will decide on critical habitat, Robinson said.

Fish & Wildlife declined to designate habitat the first time because it determined that the process would harm the jaguars by highlighting their location.

After that was struck down, the service found the U.S. habitat was not critical to the species. That decision was shot down Tuesday, he said.

Robinson believes the service will now be forced to designate critical habitat.

"There is no other conceivable excuse under the law not to designate critical habitat," he said.

Brian Segee, a Defenders of Wildlife attorney who argued for a jaguar recovery plan before the federal district court, also was buoyed by the decision.

"The United States is the jaguar's home, and we should take the actions necessary for it to recover here. We are thrilled with the court's decision and hope the Fish & Wildlife Service will now move quickly to initiate recovery planning and provide the jaguar with the full Endangered Species Act protections," he said in a news release.

Species with recovery plans and designated critical habitat recover much faster than species without them, the center said in its news release.

The center had sponsored a "memorial service" protest March 5 in honor of the euthanized cat, Macho B.

The nearly 20-year-old jaguar had been photographed in Arizona since 1996, but was euthanized earlier this month after a veterinarian determined Macho B's kidneys were failing.

The big cat was accidentally captured in February by an Arizona Game & Fish Department snare, then released with a radio collar. He was recaptured 12 days later after his movements abruptly changed, hinting he was sick.

Jaguars used to roam across much of the United States from the San Francisco Bay area to Appalachia. Sightings have been rare for decades in Arizona.

Robinson believes Tuesday's ruling will lead to broad habitat designation for the cats, perhaps as far east as Louisiana and Mississippi. He is confident there will eventually be breeding pairs here.

Even if the agency decides to designate habitat and write a recovery plan, those things are likely years away, Humphrey said.

I wonder why McCain is denying any involvement in baiting the snare for the jaguar? Is it illegal to intentionally snare endangered species? (Please forgive my ignorance on this matter.)

Considering the mental stress and physical damage snaring can cause, if it isn't illegal, then it should be.


In addition to the trouble McCain could possibly be in for snaring the jaguar, I'm thinking Brun could also have a defamation suit against him if the emails are authentic. A comparison to the emails before the capture and his recent statements shows that he is obviously lying (presuming the emails are authentic) and placing the blame on Brun.

I had a boss like that once (twice actually.)

Yep, the "smell" of this one can lead to a big can of worms. How 'bout that big fence between us and Mexico for instance? Nefarious doesn't begin to describe this cast of characters. Hope they weren't making as much as UAW workers, my bad

Wow, this is even uglier than I suspected. I really hope it isn't true that someone is getting deliberately smeared in order to cover things up.

My understanding it that, yes, (wihtout a permit, which they presumably had) it is illegal to intentionally snare an ES according to the ES Act:


from here: http://www.fws.gov/endangered/factsheets/ESA_basics.pdf. But I think legally, "intent" can be an important consideration and is clearly a lot of what is being fought about here.

-A

From News Release, Center for Biological Diversity:

Federal Investigation of Jaguar Capture Needed;
Arizona Game and Fish Department Announcement of
"Investigation" Is Too Little, Too Late

Conflicted Agency Should Be Focus of Investigation, Not Investigator

TUCSON, Ariz. The Arizona Game and Fish Department Tuesday announced it is launching an investigation into the February 18, 2009, capture of Macho B, the now-deceased, last known jaguar in the United States. The Center for Biological Diversity opposes the state investigation on conflict-of-interest grounds and today called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law-enforcement division to conduct the investigation.

Separately, Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) today also questioned the ability of Arizona Game and Fish to conduct a fair and complete investigation and called upon the Fish and Wildlife Service to do it instead.

Arizona Game and Fish captured the jaguar and approved his killing in the first place, said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. It has a severe conflict of interest; it can't fairly investigate itself.

Arizona Game and Fish spent the past month aggressively defending the capture and killing of Macho B while disparaging scientists and conservationists who dared to ask critical questions. It refused to publicly release independent lab results that contradicted its rational for euthanizing Macho B. It has refused to supply internal records under the Public Records Act. And it ordered a flawed cosmetic necropsy, destroying valuable evidence.

Arizona Game and Fishs defensive, spin-control posture in this fiasco has compromised its claim to objectivity. Any conclusions it draws from an Ëœinvestigation at this point are not likely to be accepted by a justifiably skeptical public.

The jaguar is an endangered species subject to federal control. If its capture was illegal, it was a criminal violation of the federal Endangered Species Act. The investigation should be carried out by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement. Arizona Game and Fish should be the subject of the investigation, not its leader.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYiQjIa3bas

Pretty nice graphics of the problems these animals encounter with habitat and other things (no political statement intended--just sharing the
video).

Updated info. below on the situation

Arizona Daily Star, October 18, 2009

Jaguar team ceases work amid disputes, big cat's death
By Tim Steller

The team formed to help the endangered jaguar survive in Arizona and New Mexico has ground to a standstill.

The Arizona-New Mexico Jaguar Conservation Team has struggled for years because of standoffs between environmentalists and ranching interests and perceptions of bias in the team's leadership. But perhaps the knockout blow was the death this year of the last known wild jaguar in the United States.

The team, formed in 1997, has ceased activities altogether, canceling two meetings this year because of the ongoing criminal investigation over the March 2 death of the jaguar known as Macho B.

But long before Feb. 18, when the old jaguar stepped into a snare in the wilderness between Arivaca and Nogales, many participants had left the team, some questioning its commitment to helping an endangered species recover. The perception that it had become all talk and no action was captured by the nickname some use for the group — Jaguar Conversation Team.

"Initially, things seemed very positive," said Tony Povilitis, a conservation biologist from Willcox who joined the team at the start and worked on maps of potential jaguar habitat. "As the years went on, there was more and more resistance to doing the habitat conservation work, to the point where essentially nothing got done."

The frustration was mutual for some people worried that ranchers' rights to use their own property could be curtailed by efforts to protect jaguars' habitat or reintroduce them.

"It had very laudable objectives," said Warren "Bud" Starnes, a policy specialist for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture in Las Cruces. "But the enviros started pressing and pressing and pressing, trying to get maps of habitat. Then they started threatening lawsuits."

Terry Johnson of Arizona Game and Fish, who has chaired the team since its beginning, acknowledged the team's shortcomings in an interview this month. But he said it has had key achievements despite rocky political terrain.

"It's really tough to operate somewhat in the center — not necessarily straight down the middle, but to borrow the best from the left and the best from the right … and try to develop that magic concoction that ultimately works to benefit the jaguar and the people."

Jaguars labeled endangered

The Jaguar Conservation Team was formed to stave off the possible listing of the jaguar as endangered in the United States after two jaguar sightings in 1996 — of Macho B in Southern Arizona's Baboquivari Mountains and another jaguar in southwestern New Mexico's Peloncillo Mountains.

The U.S. government had already listed the jaguar as endangered in Mexico, but it had not dealt with the jaguars seen in Arizona and New Mexico, on the far northern fringe of the largely tropical animal's range.

Povilitis and his students in a University of California-Santa Cruz field program requested that the jaguar be listed as endangered in the United States in the early 1990s, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed the listing in 1994. In 1996, Arizona Game and Fish officials conceived of the conservation team in part to convince the service that listing was unnecessary, Johnson said.

"If you can conserve a species adequately, without it becoming listed federally, then you can save yourself that regulatory burden of bureaucracy and all of the stuff that comes with it," Johnson said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service listed the jaguar as endangered anyway in July 1997, three months after the first conservation team meeting. The service acknowledged the team, but said its voluntary nature meant it could take a long time to reduce the danger of the jaguar becoming extinct. Yet, from that point on, the service deferred to the team as the lead group working toward jaguar protection and recovery.

Johnson and others went to work persuading "stakeholders" — ranchers, environmental groups, government agencies and others — to join the team and pursue "collaborative conservation" rather than regulatory dictates. "There's an immediate negative reaction on the part of any freedom-loving American who does not want to be constrained by government and dictated to by government," Johnson said. "Regulatory approaches tend to feed existing hostilities and keep them alive forever."

The team's first order of business was to establish a dialogue, something Johnson cites as a key accomplishment. Indeed, people from different sides of the issue who would not have known each other otherwise ended up working together, said Wendy Glenn, a Douglas-area rancher who also helps lead the conservationist Malpai Borderlands Group.

It also began with ambitions such as mapping potential jaguar habitat, pursuing agreements with landholders to protect such lands, monitoring jaguar occurrences and educating the public.

The early years brought some successes. In 2001, team member Jack Childs formed the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project and placed motion-sensing cameras along possible jaguar trails. He captured the first photo of a U.S. jaguar in the wild in December 2001, then got dozens of photos of at least two different jaguars in Southern Arizona.

In 2003, the team's education committee finished a jaguar curriculum for students in grades 4 through 8 and distributed hundreds of copies. That, along with Childs' photos, spread awareness of the jaguar, the top predator in its range and the only roaring cat in the Americas.

Some of the team's activities became mired in talk. The habitat committee produced several maps of potential jaguar habitat in Arizona and New Mexico, using criteria such as vegetation types, human population and the abundance of prey. Povilitis threw himself into this work, he said, but the broader team did not formally accept them.

Ranching interests questioned the validity and use of the maps. One map, said rancher Judy Keeler of Hidalgo County, in New Mexico, laid out corridors for the jaguar to use.

"My house is in one of the corridors. I've never seen a jaguar here," she said.

The discussion of habitat recommendations was set for April 2006 in Lordsburg, N.M. More than 20 representatives of separate Soil and Water Conservation districts in New Mexico showed up, recruited by ag specialist Starnes, and asked for voting privileges. Under the team's structure, only government agencies are allowed to vote, and chairman Johnson said he had to accept them as voting members.

The new voting members helped reject and put off long-discussed recommendations made by the habitat committee.

"These are guys who had not participated before and had votes. We who had been participating all along had no say-so whatsoever," said Shiloh Walkosak, a Tucsonan who had been volunteering with the jaguar detection project.

In the end, the team agreed on a more limited "emphasis area" for jaguar conservation that includes parts of 11 counties in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. But even that bothers Starnes, who said he thinks there should be a much more limited area recognized, where jaguars have actually been seen in recent years.

The word "habitat" has largely been set aside, said Michael Robinson of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued several times over jaguar protection.

"At every juncture, there was an effort to limit the scope, the scale and impact of any kind of action to preserve jaguar habitat," he said.

Participants also clashed over the issue of whether to try to put a radio collar on a jaguar.

At the same 2006 meeting, the team recommended efforts be made to collar a jaguar to learn where it roams, what it eats, how it interacts with humans and other information.

Walkosak, then an employee of the Reid Park Zoo who worked with its jaguars, argued the risks were too great. The benefits of a radio collar are clear, she said, but with so few jaguars in the United States, she argued the risks of capturing one were too great. "Once the discussion started toward collaring, it (the team) immediately split into two factions," she said.

The split prompted two original members of the scientific advisory committee, Brian Miller and Howard Quigley, to write a letter saying the team was bogged down in political debates and losing focus on the jaguar.

"The 'best available science' must override parochial issues, or recovery will be delayed. As an example, a recovery team could resolve the nine-year-long debate over the jaguar habitat model," they wrote.

Yet three years later, the argument persists. And Johnson and others say in a draft "conservation assessment" for the jaguar, now under review, that the problem may be the opposite. The team, they said, "tends to focus too much on jaguars and not enough on the human dimension on which success of borderlands jaguar conservation depends."

Conservation vs. recovery

The goal of the team listed in its existing "Jaguar Conservation Framework" is simple: "Conserve jaguars in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands." But "conservation" has become a fudge word, Povilitis argues.

"There was never clear talk about jaguar recovery," he said. "What they were talking about was something else. It was called jaguar conservation, not recovery. … Conservation can be narrowly interpreted, and in this case it was."

Johnson and others say that the best place for jaguar-recovery efforts is in Mexico, where a breeding population lives about 140 miles south of Douglas. If jaguars survive in Mexico, he said, some will likely make their way north of the border.

Sergio Avila, a Mexican-born biologist who lives in Tucson, said the emphasis on recovery in Mexico goes to the heart of the team's problem. The team has never fully accepted the jaguar is an endangered species in the United States, and actions must be taken under federal law to help it recover here, said Avila, of the Sky Island Alliance.

"There should be a recovery plan for the jaguar, and this should be led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," Avila said.

Indeed, pressure is building for the service to intervene. The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the service, demanding that it establish critical habitat and put a recovery plan in effect. The service is under a court order to make a new decision on these issues by January.

Ranchers would likely oppose the federal government's involvement, rancher Keeler said, citing recent conflict along the Arizona-New Mexico border over the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf.

"As the regulations increase, you make more demands on the property owners. In some instances, they could lose the use of their property," she said.

From the time of listing, the service has largely deferred to the conservation team in working to help the jaguar. But leaders of the team said this month their powers to act in defense of jaguars — by, for instance, changing the way certain lands are used — are limited.

The team, Johnson said, "is not an advocacy organization. It's not intended to hound the individual agencies to move forward with those sorts of things. You make people aware, then the agencies are expected to do the right thing."

Also: From Center for Biological Diversity recent link
Do Freedom-loving Americans Hate Jaguars?

As if its bumbling, possibly criminal actions that culminated in the killing of the last known U.S. jaguar weren't controversial enough, the Arizona Game and Fish Department this week justified its efforts to prevent federal protection of jaguars by saying that "any freedom-loving American" would oppose regulations to protect North America's largest and most endangered cat.

And in response to Center for Biological Diversity complaints that 12 years of state leadership have accomplished nothing to protect jaguars or their habitat in the United States, the agency countered that its efforts actually "focus too much on jaguars." Go figure.

With a membership and staff composed of freedom-lovers (who do not neglect jaguar liberty), the Center has sued the Arizona Game and Fish Department to stop it from capturing or killing any more jaguars. A previous Center suit won a court order overturning the Bush administration's refusal to establish those pesky recovery plans and habitat protections that Game and Fish find so objectionable. The Obama administration has appealed the ruling, but we're confident that freedom-loving judges are not about to consign the American jaguar to extinction.

Sad situation, thanks for keeping us updated bipedalist.

this is a dead issue. there are more than one jag in az and there is an all black one roaming southern az.

for those who dont know az is far from all desert. infact the areas of southern az where these cats seem to be found are more of a higher elevation desert region. there is enough water and food to easily support these animals especially if you cant the ignorant fools who think every now sub division and golf course need huge lakes. to get permited all they have to do is show a 100 year water sourse.

short sighted .......yes?

That is just it, some are trying to ensure it is not a cyclical dead issue with many additional snared carcasses. I wouldn't be updating the info. on the case/animals if I didn't think there were more there that needed a plan and not a collar. But thanks for the update of your knowledge of others. It is reassuring to hear that.

They are still in New Mexico too. There have been documented sightings as far north as the Black Range and undocumented sightings of them even farther north than that. These sightings are hellova long ways away from the Sierra Madre "breeding population". I know about the melanistic one that has been sighted several times in AZ also (I'm only 14 miles from the state line) and were it's hanging out is way the hell and gone from the Sierra Madre's too. I seriously doubt if the cat's being spotted this far north are just young males "on walk about" from Mexico.

I do appreciate the up dates from bipedalist though. It helps point out the bueracratic muddy swamp that wildlife management has become in both New Mexico and Arizona.

I could eat up a lot of memory on the server listing all the incredably stupid things that are going on but, instead I will give two of examples of why we have problems in the first place.

1. In New Mexico the members of the Game Commission are appointed by the Governor "ie: people who contributed to his campaign". Two Governors ago a prominant local business man made substancial contributions to the campaign, after the election, in return the new Governor appointed his socialite wife to Game Commission. The business man and his wife are friends of mine and good people but, the bottom line is, if you turned loose a bull elk and a javelina in a pen and asked her to tell you which one was which? She couldnt do it! And last year one of our Commissioner's got caught poaching a deer in an area his license was not valid for, tried to claim he didnt know how to use a GPS. His lame defense didnt work and he was found guilty. But, he's still on the Game Commission! So, our Game Commission consists of two types of people, the ones who dont know squat about wildlife and the ones that have there own agenda for taking trophy animals.

2. The Game and Fish Department here receives no funding from the state. There entire budget is based on income from license sales. So, they pack as many license's and hunts into a hunt unit as they possibly can (and the fees for a non resident license are really high, if I didnt live here I couldnt afford to hunt here). If you take a calender and high light the dates for all the hunts in the mountain units for all species, you will see that the animals get no respite from the camoflage army from the middle of August all the way to the middle of January. The Game Dept. justify's this by stating they are trying to provide the maximum amount of hunting opportunity's for the maximum amount of hunters! What a crock! The only reason we have such a great veriaty of animals in decent numbers and rare critters running around like jaguars and sasquatch is because we have huge expanses of rugged mountains with lots of great country that is not accessable by vehicles. And 90% of the "hunters" are city boys that sight in thier rifles, muzzleloaders, or bows the weekend before the hunt (the only time they get em out of the closet all year) then head up in the mountains for their hunt. Those kind of "hunters" take one look at the country where the forest service road ends, turn around and go hunt where there's more roads. I guess they are afraid they might get lost. You can spot em from miles away too. Blaze orange is not required in New Mexico for hunting but, those kinda guys show up in the mountains looking like a traffic warning. The locals call them "BOB'S", it stands for blaze orange boneheads!

As you can see, wildlife "management" in the southwest is bueracratic B.S. and dont get me started on those DAMN WOLVES they reintroduced here. That's another nightmare the Government shoved down our throat.

Sorry for gettin long winded "again" but this topic hit close to my heart. I followed the Macho B story in the press also. It is another tragedy caused by bueracrats.

I appologize for the bad spelling and grammer here. I sprained my wrist this week and have a brace on, its hard to type and for some reason my spell check aint working.

Rog

Wow, just wow........what a gauntlet. Y'all are lucky to have anything crawling (or walking) around in those gamelands in NM! I knew that state was off
the fed. grid so to speak with education, but I didn't know about the game and fish commission situation and how that impacts wildlife. Still, if those pops. of
jags are that far from Sierra Madre, unless there are dozens of them at a time taking expeditions from Mexico, I think like you do that it is safe to assume there may be breeding populations throughout the southwest (at least I hope so). I don't talk wolf, either. But we did have an Elk dropped illegally from a transplanted population in GSMNP here the other day (broad daylight), carcass left. A description of a blue Avalanche vehicle was suspect.

Just wanted to pause for a minute and thank HOPEFUL for starting this thread. It has been very eye opening and tells us a lot goes on behind the scenes, sometimes we learn about it......and that is sometimes what makes life worth living if you love wildlife like I do.

Update: http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/324866

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/324866

and third, from email newsletter from Center for Biological Diversity
and fourth, .pdf on recovery plan from Fish and Wildlife Service

The Arizona Daily Star
Published: 01.12.2010

Feds to set recovery plan, critical habitat for jaguar
By Tony Davis and Tim Steller
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
In a major policy reversal, the Obama Administration said today it will both prepare a recovery plan for the endangered jaguar and designate prime habitat, to help the big cat recover and thrive in a country where no jaguars are known to live.
The Fish and Wildlife Service made the recovery plan announcement this afternoon, a few hours after it sent its earlier decision to declare critical habitat for the jaguar to the Federal Register to publish on Wednesday.
The decisions cap a lengthy controversy over how the federal government should treat the endangered cat -- a controversy that has dragged on almost since the animal was given federal protection back in 1997.
The recovery plan announcement by Acting Service Director Rowan Gould added in a note to the service's Southwest Regional Office, "Recognizing that most of the habitat for this species and almost all individuals of this species occur outside of the United States, the extent and details of the plan will need to be clarified and focused as you proceed with the planning process."
The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity celebrated the decisions. "We're delighted about the critical habitat designation," said Michael Robinson of the center, before the recovery plan decision was announced.
Rancher Judy Keeler, who has been involved with the Arizona-New Mexico Jaguar Conservation Team for years, was resigned about the news. The jaguar's real critical habitat is south of the United States, she said from her ranch in far southwestern New Mexico.
"We don't have any jaguars here. Never have been to my knowledge. My parents and grandparents have lived here since the 1880s," she said.
The only jaguar known to spend considerable amounts of time in the United States, Macho B, was euthanized March 2, 12 days after being captured by Arizona Game and Fish employees and fitted with a tracking collar. A veterinarian diagnosed the animal with kidney failure.
Check back with Starnet today for more on this story, and look at the Star's archive of jaguar stories.
Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or at tdavis@azstarnet.com
© 1999-2010 AzStarNet

Victory for Jaguars: Obama Pledges Recovery Plan, Habitat Protection

Capping a 13-year battle to save the American jaguar from extinction, this week the Center for Biological Diversity won a decision from the Obama administration to develop a recovery plan and protect essential habitat for North America's largest and most endangered cat.

The Bush administration had twice declared that it would not recover, reintroduce, or do anything to protect jaguars in the United States. Twice the Center's legal team filed suit and struck down the illegal decisions. This left the final decision up to Obama, but until the last moment, we were uncertain he would do the right thing as he has not made endangered species a priority to date.

Now that the Obama administration has committed to developing a federal recovery plan and mapping out the jaguar's critical habitat, the long, hard work of saving the American jaguar can begin.

Click to view attachment

Cool

bump

I hope the Jaguar population makes it back...

The New York Times, January 23, 2010

Arizona Intentionally Snared Last Jaguar, Inquiry Finds
By Leslie Kaufman

Contrary to their denials, employees of the Arizona Game and Fish Department intentionally snared the last known jaguar in the Southwest last year, a report by the federal government says.

Wildlife advocates and politicians had demanded a federal investigation of the capture of the male cat, nicknamed Macho B, which was freed soon after he was snared but later recaptured and euthanized because he was ailing. Many described the department’s account of his capture and death as suspicious.

The report, issued by the inspector general of the Interior Department, said the Arizona game and fish employees had acted inappropriately in many ways, starting with the snaring.

But Arizona’s Game and Fish Department called the document incomplete and denied that it was to blame.

“The department stands by its previous statements that the department did not direct any department employee or any other person associated with the initial capture to intentionally capture a jaguar,â€� said Tom Cadden, the department’s spokesman.

In February, the 118-pound jaguar, which then appeared to be in fine health, was captured in a leg-hold snare in the mountains near Nogales, Ariz. His canine tooth was broken as a result. He was tranquilized, equipped with a radio collar and released.

Days later it was found that Macho B was not moving, and he was recaptured and brought to the Phoenix zoo. Veterinarians there said he was suffering from irreversible kidney failure and euthanized him.

Arizona’s Game and Fish Department repeatedly denied that the snare was intended for the jaguar and said it had been set for mountain lions or bears. But the outcry from wildlife advocates and local politicians led to several investigations, including a joint criminal inquiry by the law enforcement arm of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the Interior Department, and the Justice Department.

In its report, the inspector general listed several violations by the Arizona employees. It said the trap was set in an area that the employees knew Macho B patrolled. By law they needed to notify the federal authorities before setting the trap and get a permit but did not do so.

The employees also had a necropsy performed on the jaguar but not a full one, as would have been appropriate, the report said.

Without the full necropsy it is impossible to know whether Macho B’s death was related to his being snared.

In describing the jaguar’s capture as intentional, the report did not offer specific evidence. But it said that the United States attorney’s office in Tucson was in possession of the specifics related to the investigation.

Tom Buckley, a spokesman for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, said it was too early to know if any charges would be filed.

Some critics of the jaguar’s capture said they were vindicated by the preliminary findings.

“This is a moral indictment if not a criminal one,� said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a wildlife advocacy group based in Tucson.

The jaguar has been listed since 1997 as endangered, the highest level of peril for a wild species. Last week the Fish and Wildlife Service said it would take steps to designate and protect its habitat and draft a recovery plan.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/science/...h/23jaguar.html
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

http://www.azstarnet.com/news/science/envi...a34cd7cd40.html


Arizona Daily Star, February 16, 2010

Camera snaps jaguar photos below border
By Tony Davis

A conservation group has discovered at least one jaguar in northern Sonora, about 30 miles south of the Arizona border, the group reported Monday.

The Sky Island Alliance's remote cameras caught a jaguar in the same spot in two photographs taken eight days apart in early January, said Sergio Avila, an alliance biologist in Tucson.

It's not known if the photos were of the same animal, because they showed different sides. The sex of neither photo subjects is known, Avila said.

Avila said he saw the photos for the first time over the weekend at the home of Carlos Elias, a northern Sonora rancher on whose land the photos were taken.

Working in the northern Mexico area for five years, the group has also documented jaguar tracks and evidence of jaguar kills there.

The photographs come a year after the United States' last known wild jaguar, Macho B, was captured in a Southern Arizona canyon near the Mexican border.

Macho B was fitted with a radio collar, released, recaptured after slowing down and then euthanized March 2, 2009 - all within a 12-day period.

Typically, the central focus of northern Sonora jaguars has been on the Northern Jaguar Preserve, about 90 miles south of where the latest jaguar sightings occurred.

"Northern jaguars are a reality, and they want to stay," Avila said. "Jaguars don't recognize political boundaries. They choose robust prey populations, open space and safe corridors.

"This is just the beginning" of the group's efforts to recover what he believes to be a viable, long-term jaguar population in northern Sonora and Southern Arizona, Avila said.

The latest jaguar photos were taken in oak woodland riverfront habitat, the same type of habitat where four male jaguars have been spotted in the Sky Islands of Arizona and New Mexico since 1996, he said.

An Arizona State University biologist who has written about jaguars, however, downplayed the biological significance of this discovery. A reproducing female is needed to show that a viable population exists, said David Brown.

"There's nothing unusual about a jaguar discovered in oak woodlands - kind of neat, but nothing surprising," said Brown, co-author of the 2001 book "Borderlands Jaguars."

"My guess is it's just another male, expanding out from that core area. I think it's a neat observation and a great discovery, but biologically it doesn't mean that much."

The 70,000-square-mile Sky Islands region of Southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico is globally important because of its rich diversity of species and habitats, and the presence of rare species such as the jaguar and the Mexican wolf, the alliance said. Sky Islands are forested ranges separated by expanses of desert and grasslands.

Even if this latest discovery is a solitary male, the discovery is significant because researchers continue to find jaguars in the Sky Islands along the U.S.-Mexican border, Avila said. It proves this is healthy habitat, containing healthy prey populations with opportunities for jaguar recovery, Avila said.

"The jaguars are telling us what good habitat looks like - what we should continue to protect," he said.

© Copyright 2010, Arizona Daily Star

Thanks for the update on this story bipedalist.

It's been a compelling ride from somebody not accustomed to the southwest but interested in the area, habitat, animals, etc. I guess a little of it is left over from my Philmont experience in Northeast New Mexico. Beautiful habitat out there. But those temps leave a lot to be desired in the summer.