The Center for Biological Diversity released new video today of a wild jaguar in Chiricahua Mountains.
The video was captured by a remote-sensor camera and offers a glimpse of the jaguar recently named “Sombra” by students at Paulo Freire Freedom School in Tucson.
The Center for Biological Diversity Facebook page says the rosette spot patterns on the cat suggest this is the same individual photographed by the Bureau of Land Management in the Dos Cabezas Mountains in November 2016.
The sex of the jaguar remains unknown.
According to the Facebook post:
Additional footage from the same remote camera also shows bears, a mountain lion, deer and a coati sharing the same habitat with Sombra. Since 2015, three wild jaguars have been spotted in Arizona: El Jefe, Yo'oko and Sombra.
Since 1996 wild jaguars have appeared in nine different mountain ranges in Arizona and two mountain ranges in New Mexico. In March 2014 — as a result of legal action by the Center for Biological Diversity — jaguars received 764,207 acres of critical habitat in Arizona and New Mexico.
Jaguars have always roamed the U.S. Southwest but were nearly driven to extinction in the 20th century. One of the greatest single threats to jaguar recovery in the United States is the proposed expansion of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, which would destroy the big cats' ancient migration paths.
