D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
September 2009
Jaguar
Page: 2The more I learned about the jaguar, the more its preternatural cunning and elusiveness impressed me. Here was one of the few remaining apex predators with sufficient skill, strength and savvy to survive almost any challenge, with the notable exception of habitat loss and prey disappearance. While its customary homes were tropical forest, tree-studded savanna and humid wetland, the jaguar also managed to persist in the southwestern United States, where bounty hunters had largely wiped the cat out by the 1960s. Confirmed sightings since European settlement have placed jaguars in the Burro Mountains, Gila River watershed, Mogollon Rim and as far north as the Grand Canyon and central New Mexico. The verified killing of a jaguar in the Gila was near Kingston in 1902.
Remarkably, the spotted cat seems able to occur in almost any ecological niche. Within our quadrant, the species had made its home in ecosystems as varied as creosote-dotted deserts, pion-juniper woodlands and arboreal forests of spruce, pine and fir. "In the struggle for survival," Charles Darwin once observed, "the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals" not simply as a function of brains and brawn, but "because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment."
Despite their adaptability, jaguars are in trouble. A highly evolved loner, the species now competes with human beings — and their impact — nearly everywhere. Landscape changes and prey loss are constant. Despite legal sanctions, hundreds of jaguars are killed by people each year through means as varied as accidental car collisions and deliberate poisoning. This is particularly common in the Amazon River basin, where livestock graze widely and enforcement of wildlife laws is almost non-existent. Without large protected spaces containing sufficient wild game — and wise management of both these lands and adjacent agricultural areas — it seems wild jaguars might not make it into the 22nd century.
"There are no reliable figures for the total number of jaguars remaining in the wild," Mel and Fiona Sunquist concluded in Wild Cats of the World, published in 2002. "Most countries with jaguar populations have been unable to regulate hunting effectively, and little is known of the population dynamics of wild jaguars."
During the last century, more than half of jaguar habitat has been obliterated or extensively modified. Two-thirds of Central America's forest cover has been lost and nearly that much in Brazil. Latin America continues to have one of the highest deforestation rates in the world.
"It's not that I want to protect jaguars," pioneering researcher Alan Rabinowitz once explained to an interviewer. "I'm actually allergic to cats, and every time I capture one my whole face swells up." But in saving an endangered animal that requires a great swath of little-disturbed habitat, "I know I am saving a good ecological system for a variety of species."
I made 14 trips during the 1980s and 1990s to national parks and nature reserves in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, but did not see a wild jaguar. Though hardly surprising, this outcome disappointed me. Certainly I could write about the cat without encountering one outside captivity, and I continued to do so.
I knew I could improve the long odds of discovery by hiring a professional like Arizona's Warner Glenn, who hunts with his hounds an average of 110 days a year, or tag along with a wildlife biologist in Latin America. But that felt like cheating. I wanted to see a jaguar without the aid of guides, dogs, horses, mules, callers, scents, traps, sensors or snares.
In January 2001, I met an ardent and gregarious young naturalist named Mark Pretti at Ramsey Canyon Nature Reserve in the Huachuca range of southeast Arizona. A tour of the sanctuary had been arranged by fellow writer Nicky Leach, who planned to interview Pretti for an Arizona travel guide to which I was a contributor. Ramsey Canyon encompasses a highly specialized streamside habitat not far from the US-Mexico border. This narrow defile links desert and mountain with year-round flowing water.
"We are at the northern edge of their range for several species associated with the subtropics," Pretti told us, as we trudged through four inches of seasonally appropriate snow. "For example, we have lots of coati here. It's a raccoon relative found more often in lush, moist habitats than arid desert, yet is pushing further into Arizona and New Mexico." The sanctuary, Pretti added, was one of the only places in the US where one could reliably find emerald and eared trogons. These exotic habitus of Central America are relatives of the resplendent quetzal, a reclusive cloud forest bird known for its exceedingly long tail and iridescent green crest.
We paused before a small pond, partially iced over. Pretti told us this unimpressive body of water, filled by spring-fed Ramsey Creek, was home to an exceedingly rare species: the Ramsey Canyon leopard frog. For an animal found only within a four-mile radius of this spot, the humble puddle was the amphibian's last stronghold on Earth.
"What about jaguars?" I interrupted, remembering that Ramsey Canyon and the adjacent Huachucas were within Panthera onca's historic range. "There were a number of sightings in Arizona during the 20th century. [As many as 30, according to biologist David E. Brown.] Is there evidence they're still around?"
Pretti shook his head and grinned, as if my question was anticipated. "Nope," he said, "although it's theoretically possible. The last confirmed sighting in our state was in the Baboquvari Mountains, about 50 miles to our west. A lion-tracker named Jack Childs, with his wife and friends, took a picture of a jaguar there in August of '96. This was about six months after Warner Glenn found a jaguar in the Peloncillos. The Baboquvaris are more rugged country than this and their western slope is on the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation. I guess if a jaguar is around, that's where you'd find it."
The conversation continued as we walked along the snow-draped trail. Pretti excitedly told Nicky about other animals — the lesser long-nosed bat and beryline hummingbird — found in this narrow canyon but rarely seen anywhere else in the US. His voice faded away as wheels turned in my head. Something was shifting. A part of me was certain I would take myself to the Baboquvaris and look for the wild jaguar. I felt my anticipation swell like a pang of hunger. Edgy excitement surfaced as it had when I first read about the Peloncillo cat. I still wanted to meet — on foot and without guns, gizmos or canines — this enduring four-footed symbol of New World wilderness. For the next five years, nothing would dissuade me from this pursuit.
Excerpted from The Jaguar's Shadow: Searching for a Mythic Cat (Yale University Press, $27). (c) 2009 by Richard Mahler. Learn more about Silver City writer Richard Mahler's quest — and how to help save US jaguars — at www.TheJaguarsShadow.com
Author Richard Mahler will give an illustrated talk and sign copies of "The Jaguar's Shadow," on Friday, Sept. 25, at 7 p.m. at Bear Mountain Lodge near Silver City. The event is free and open to the public. All proceeds from the evening's book sales will benefit The Nature Conservancy, which operates the lodge and is involved in conservation work throughout the Gila and Mimbres watersheds. Information: 534-4841.