The Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project: A Report on the Jaguar in Southeastern Arizona Photo © Emil McCain. Jack L. Childs blend in with the tree and surrounding was the first time a jaguar had ever Emil B. McCain hillside. Our eyes finally focused on been photographed alive in the wild Anna Mary Childs the most magnificent animal we had in the United States. The Glenns Janay Brun ever encountered. photographed a second adult male Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project This life changing event took jaguar in the same area in February place on August 31, l996. 2006. The constant barking of the On March 7, 1996, just six months The jaguar was virtually unknown hounds announced that they had their prior to our encounter, professional in the desert environment of the quarry at bay. Matt Colvin, our young guides Warner Glenn and Kelly Glenn American Southwest in l996. Historic hunting companion, ran ahead, leaving Kimbro were hunting mountain lions records suggested a small and us far behind. After a long hard climb in the Peloncillo Mountains along declining population until the 1940s. up the steep, brushy mountainside, the Arizona-New Mexico border. After this time, only an occasional my wife, Anna, and I finally arrived Their hounds brought to bay an adult jaguar was reported about every 10 at the source of the excitement. We male jaguar on a rocky cliff. Instead years. The species was therefore could see the hounds and Matt. They of reaching for his rifle, Warner generally thought to be absent from were all looking up into the branches grabbed his camera and took several the area and was overlooked for of an alligator juniper tree. Expecting photographs before he gathered his protection by the Endangered Species a mountain lion, we did not see the dogs, tipped his hat, and rode away Act. jaguar at first glance, so well did he grateful for the experience. This Following the two 1996 sightings, Wild Cat News - www.cougarnet.org 1 the Arizona and New Mexico Game jaguar as an endangered species in the here or dispersing immigrants from and Fish Departments joined forces United States the same year. a population in Mexico? If they are and created the Arizona-New Mexico In March 2001, Anna and I residents, what is the size of their Jaguar Conservation Team (Jag Team) founded The Borderlands Jaguar home range? What types of habitat in l997, complete with a Scientific Detection Project with the help and do they require? What are their major Advisory Group of the world’s support of the Jag Team. The focus prey species? Most importantly, do leading jaguar biologists. This team of this project is two-fold. Our we have a viable breeding population of state and federal wildlife and land goals are to describe and quantify in Arizona? management agencies, university the current status and distribution In order to answer these questions, biologists, conservation groups, local of jaguars in the borderlands region we set out remote sensing trail landowners, ranchers and concerned and apply our findings to sound cameras and established a network citizens was formed in a collaborative conservation management through the of track transects. We focused on approach to help protect and manage Jag Team and its land management major travel routes and natural funnels the jaguar and its habitat in Arizona members. We want to learn as much through areas of core and connective and New Mexico. The U.S. Fish and as we can about jaguars in southern habitats in the mountains of Wildlife Service formally listed the Arizona. Are these animals residents southeastern Arizona. We established Below: Emil McCain cleans a the sensor for one of the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project’s remote cameras. Photo © Emil McCain. our surveys in areas where we located jaguars in this desert environment. because he was the first jaguar of our high densities of mountain lion sign. Our trail cameras photographed study. Our belief was that jaguars might use our first jaguar in December 2001. Between 2001 and 2004, we the landscape similar to lions and The Jag Team’s Scientific Advisory captured three photographs of Macho travel along the same routes. We Group estimated that he was 3 to A, all of his right side. Therefore, used our knowledge of mountain lion 5 years old. Because the jaguar is we never learned the spot pattern behavior, gained during more than 40 so deeply rooted in Latin American on his left side. Shortly before and years of experience following them culture, we began referring to this shortly after we last photographed in these remote mountain ranges, to jaguar as “Macho A.” “Macho” being Macho A, our cameras obtained two predict the most likely places to find the Spanish word for “male” and “A” photographs of the left profile of a jaguar. These pictures could either be Photos © Emil McCain. the left unknown side of Macho A or a different, unknown jaguar. Without a simultaneous photograph from both sides (paired cameras) we cannot be sure. Emil McCain, a Humboldt State University graduate student, joined the project in June 2004. He added several years of jaguar research experience gained in Costa Rica and Sonora, Mexico. Emil soon expanded the project three-fold. Camera captures soon expanded exponentially. We now have more than 15,000 images of 25 of the region’s wildlife species, including more than 70 photographs of jaguars. On August 31, 2004, we photographed another adult male jaguar in the same mountain range as Macho A. This jaguar had a distinctly different spot pattern. On his right side was a conspicuous rosette resembling the cartoon character “Pinocchio.” Being the second jaguar on our study, he became “Macho B.” Ever since the project began, we hoped to find the original 1996 jaguar again. Finally our wish came true. One spring day in 2006, we were reviewing our old photos of the jaguar we first treed in 1996 and realized what we hadn’t comprehended before. Winking at us through the juniper branches was the familiar face of Pinocchio. The jaguar which glared down at us from the tree that day was Macho B; our beautiful Baboquiviri jaguar is still here 10 years later! Those original photographs of Wild Cat News - www.cougarnet.org 3 Above: Jack Childs (left) and Emil McCain survey tracks in the Borderlands. Photo © Emil McCain. Macho B from 1996 were analyzed returning to the population in Mexico rounded toes and enormous plantar by the Jag Team’s Scientific Advisory as breeding adults. pad. She turned and said, “I’ve seen Group, who aged him between 2 and Our data would suggest otherwise. this track before.” She then said that 3 years old. Macho B remains in Macho A and Macho B are clearly not in 1999 in a distant mountain range 50 Arizona today, crossing back and forth dispersing juveniles. Macho A was miles to the north, she had seen a large between several mountain ranges in present as an adult animal from 2001, spotted cat jump from a rocky ledge Arizona. We believe he also ranges at 3 to 5 years old, to 2004, when he and disappear into a steep brushy south of the border into Sonora, was 6 to 8 years old. We know that ravine. Minutes later she heard a low, Mexico. So far, our surveys have Macho B was in Arizona as a 2- to cough-like roar repeatedly sounding recorded Macho B at 83 locations 3-year-old in 1996 and has been here out of the canyon where the cat had over a minimum observed range of continuously from 2004 to 2007. disappeared. In 2002 and again in 1,360 km2. We have photographed Did he spend the intervening years 2004, Janay found and photographed him during every month of the year, in Mexico contributing to the gene the tracks of a large cat on this same and quite continuously from 2004 and pool, or was he simply in a portion trail. After returning from the day’s into 2007. At the time of the latest of his range in Arizona we were not camera work, Janay showed Emil her photograph in March 2007, he was surveying at the time? photo albums. There were hundreds between 12 ½ and 13 ½ years of age. In September 2001, an aspiring of photos of tracks: mountain lion, Some scientists speculate young naturalist named Janay Brun bobcat, coyote, and badger. But there, that our southern Arizona jaguars joined the project. She soon became on the first page were the tracks that could be transient individuals that a leading field technician. One sunny had inspired her passion in tracking were displaced by dominant males May morning in 2006, Janay and cats. The pudgy toes and robust pad from a known breeding population Emil were checking cameras near the were compressed in a huge track that approximately 180 miles south in border and came upon fresh jaguar was unmistakably jaguar. We had not Sonora, Mexico. Theoretically, tracks. Kneeling in the sandy wash, previously monitored this mountain displaced juveniles could then grow Janay studied the track in the early range, and this information made us to maturity in Arizona, eventually morning light, which accentuated the wonder if this could be where Macho Wild Cat News - www.cougarnet.org 4 Photo © Emil McCain. B had been living between 1996 (~35%). The best explanation is Arizona, the Arizona Game and and 2004. Janay returned to place that females occupy smaller home Fish Department (AZGFD) and the cameras where she had seen the cat. ranges and have more restricted Jag Team’s Habitat Sub-Committee In September 2006, she photographed movements than males, thus reducing created GIS habitat suitability Macho B.