This big cat hasn’t been documented again since last summer.
The Chiricahua jaguar is the third most recent jaguar to be seen in Arizona since 2011. The University of Arizona’s Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center detected him 50 times.
University of Arizona Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center
No. 3: The Chiricahua jaguar
A decade ago, the Bureau of Land Management and the University’s Citizen Science Monitoring Team detected this male jaguar roaming in the Chiricahua Mountains, part of a patchwork region of isolated mountain ranges and grasslands that spans across the border called the Sky Islands.
From 2016 the team has documented the big cat through photos and videos about 50 times.
The Huachuca jaguar was first seen via trail camera in the Huachuca Mountains in 2016.
University of Arizona Wild Cat Research & Conservation Center
No. 2: The Huachuca jaguar
In 2016, U.S. Customs and Border Protection detected a male jaguar on one of the agency’s cameras. One year later, the university’s citizen science team documented nine more sightings in the Huachuca Mountains.
A sample of the jaguar’s scat was collected and analyzed at the wild cat center’s lab. For researchers like Malusa, scat isn’t gross so much as it is a wealth of information.
The samples are an important part of studying the species’ genetics. They can reveal how diverse the population is and how jaguars are related. Over time, samples from different individuals can answer big questions about landscape connectivity and the future of conservation for jaguars.
In 2018, the Huachuca jaguar was found dead in Sonora, Mexico.
El Jefe was the first jaguar that the University of Arizona’s Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center documented in 2012. He was seen roaming the Santa Rita Mountains.
University of Arizona Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center
No. 1: El Jefe
With his pack of hunting dogs and his 10-year-old daughter, Donnie Fenn went out in search of mountain lions in November 2011.
The hounds did not come across any lions. But they did chase a jaguar — the first spotted in the state since 2009 — up a tree. Fenn had been hunting in the Whetstone Mountains when the dogs caught the jaguar’s scent and took off after the big cat, which Fenn told the New York Times was twice the size of a mountain lion.