Jaguar captured in Aizona!

[L. Coyote]

Considered extinct in the U.S. by the 1970s, two independent sightings of jaguars (Panthera onca) ten years ago confirmed that they might still exist in the American Southwest. Recently, images of jaguars were taken in Arizona and New Mexico, and now one has been captured in Arizona. ...

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/find-jag/

[hlthe2b]

1. What an incredibly beautiful animal...

Let's hope we do a better job protecting them this time around...

[mitchtv]

2. I always expected as much

NATURE is wonderful

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. What a gorgeous animal!

Why not place a chip under the skin instead of that huge collar that could snag and choke him? :shrug:

Thanks for posting this LC! :hi:

[Arctic Dave]

5. I once read that they would rather do the collar then a chip

because of fear of infection. I can't remember were I seen this.

[Warpy]

6. It makes a great deal of sense

because even if they put it somewhere the kitty doesn't lick, any break in the skin of a wild animal is potentially serious.

My kitty got chipped, but that's because she lives with me and I know enough to keep an eye out for infection.

The collar will eventually fall off, but by that time they'll have amassed a great deal of data on the cat's range.

My own best guess is that their range is close to the southern part of the Rio Grande here in NM. The country is too high, dry, and rugged to provide much of a living to big cats and cougars would be in direct competition in the mountains.

However, jaguars just give us another reason to tear down Mr. Bush's fence.

[semillama]

10. Hear, hear on tearing down the border wall!

My only wild cat sighting to date was a bobcat in Arizona last September:

[Warpy]

11. The zoo here in NM has a decent big cat habitat

but the poor bobcat is still sitting in a too-small enclosure with no toys.

Still, he seems a lot healthier than your specimen.

We've meowed at each other for a very long time, much to the amusement of zoo employees.

[Whoa_Nelly]

7. sounds plausible

:hi:

[marybourg]

4. I saw a jaguarundi cat (felis yagouaroundi) in Organ Pipe

Cactus Nat'l Monument in '92. It wasn't just a glimpse. We saw the animal only 20 or so feet away for 2 or 2 1/2 minutes before it bounded away. They were thought to be extinct in US since none had been seen since 1952. It took me weeks to find out what we had seen since most Western U.S. wildlife guides omitted them. Finally I came upon the Peterson Field Guide to Animal Tracks, (2nd ed., 1974, p.124) where I found what we had seen!

I wrote to the Park director and he called back the next day. He said the the Park mammalogist had reported what he believed to be jaguarundi tracks (probably ID'd thru the same field guide), but the Director and other biologists had poo-pood him based on the lack of sightings since '52. Mr marybourg and I had only spent 2 days in the park and were incredibly lucky! It's one of the high points of my life

http://www.edf.org/documents/5073_OcelotFacts.pdf. edit: something is wrong with this link, when the page come up, click on "the ocelot and the jaguarundi" near the bottom

[L. Coyote]

8. Jaguarundi images

http://images.google.com/images?oe=utf-8&q=jaguarundi

[marybourg]

9. Thank you! The one I saw was grey. Some are orange nt.