Breeding ground for illegal feline immigrants established in Sonora

By M. John Fayhee

A couple months ago, I penned a Smoke Signals column (“Nice Kitty,” MG #137) wherein I discoursed upon the captivating reality that jaguars — the world’s third-largest species of feline (with some males reaching as much as 300 pounds) — were gradually reintroducing themselves into some of their native range in southwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona. This reality, as I wrote, is causing some degree of heartburn in the offices of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the federal agency directed by Congress to enforce the Endangered Species Act. In 1997, USFWS listed the jaguar as an official endangered species, yet they refused, and continue to refuse, to establish the legally required critical habitat necessary for panthera onca arizonensis — the northernmost subspecies of jaguar — to be able to recover itself to the point that it can be eventually removed from the Endangered Species list, which is sort of the point.

As a legal battle between the USFWS and the Center for Biological Diversity over the establishment of critical habitat rages, the Tucson-based Northern Jaguar Project has, very under-the-radar-like, partnered with a Mexican environmental group, Naturalia, to procure and protect 45,000 acres of privately held land specifically to ensure the survival of the last sustainable remnants of jaguar population north of the tropics.

In 2003, Naturalia and the Northern Jaguar Project purchased the 10,000-acre Rancho Los Pavos, an area of rich and abundant biodiversity in the northern Sierra Madre in the Mexican state of Sonora. The groups spent the next five years desperately trying to raise $1.5 million to purchase the adjacent 35,000-acre Rancho Zetasora before the owner, who has long been sympathetic toward the jaguar-preservation cause, was forced to sell his holdings to the highest bidder. With the help of more than 600 individual donors and private foundations, Naturalia and the Northern Jaguar Project raised the necessary cash and, in late January, the final payment on the Rancho Zetasora was made. All told, the Northern Jaguar Preserve now encompasses 70 square miles of very remote terrain that is very much a part of the jaguar’s historic range.

“In this remote and rugged area of northern Sonora, a small population of 80 to 120 jaguars struggles to avoid extinction,” said Diana Hadley, president of the Northern Jaguar Project. “The purchase of Zetasora is a crucial step in creating a reserve large enough to effectively protect jaguars as well as dozens of threatened and endangered species.”

“With lengthy frontage on the Aros River, a single, often-impassable road and deep canyons with deer and other prey, the reserve supports the best possible habitat for northern jaguars,” said Oscar Moctezuma, director of Naturalia.

The Northern Jaguar Project has established a stewardship endowment fund to provide permanent support to guard the jaguar population, begin the process of ecological restoration, foster wildlife research and continue educational and incentive programs with local ranchers to reduce poaching and to elevate public awareness for conservation.

According to Hadley, of even bigger concern to conservationists than the obstinate refusal of USFWS to designate critical habitat for the jaguar in this country is the specter of the much-ballyhooed U.S. border fence, which all environmentalists agree would seriously fuck up the migration patterns of many animals, including the jaguar.

“The Northern Jaguar Reserve presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save this species,” said Hadley. “Even if the border fence temporarily blocks jaguar migration, the reserve will help ensure a pathway for jaguars to again roam their former range in the southwestern U.S.”

And, if the fence is not built, then there is little doubt that, since the species is inclined to ramble over long distances, some of the jaguars hanging their hats at the Northern Jaguar Preserve will eventually make their way north across the border to face a fate that is defined by mixed messages: Though the animal is legally protected by the tenets of the Endangered Species Act, it finds itself without clearly delineated territory upon which it can go about the business of not only surviving as a species, but of rebuilding a population base that has long been decimated by the well-aimed efforts of the ranching industry.

Hadley remains uncommitted regarding the question of eventual public access to the Northern Jaguar Preserve.

“At this point, the access is rough,” she told me last October. “It can take as long as 24 hours to reach the preserve, even though it’s only 60 miles from the closest paved road. When it rains, the roads can be washed out entirely.”

It is important to note that, just because the Northern Jaguar Preserve has been established, the jaguar’s survival in the Sierra Madre is anything but assured.

“There are estimated to be about 100 to 150 jaguars in the immediate area,” said Richard Mahler, a Silver City, New Mexico-based writer whose book, The Jaguar’s Shadow: In Search of a Mythic Cat, will be published by Yale University Press next year. “It’s a perfect place for a jaguar reserve. But, in Mexico, the environmental laws are about the same as here. Ranchers can shoot animals, even endangered species, that threaten their property, which includes livestock. And jaguars do prey on livestock. There are two main threats to the jaguars in that area — ranchers shooting them and the market for exotic species products, like hides. At least 30 jaguars have been killed in that area in the past five years. There are serious threats to this species.”

For more information on the Northern Jaguar Preserve, go to www. northernjaguarproject.org