El Jefe (jaguar)

Last updated

El Jefe
El-jefe-jaguar-fws1.jpg
El Jefe in Arizona, 2013
Species Jaguar
SexMale
BornLikely Sierra Madre, northwest Mexico [1]
Known forBeing one of the few wild jaguars to have been recently sighted in the U.S.A. [1]
Residence Mexico, North America [2]

El Jefe is an adult, male jaguar that was seen in Arizona. [1] He was first recorded in the Whetstone Mountains in November 2011, [3] and was later photographed over several years in the Santa Rita Mountains. From November 2011 to late 2015, El Jefe was the only wild jaguar verified to live in the United States since the death of Arizona Jaguar Macho B in 2009. [4] According to "Notes on the Occurrences of Jaguars in Arizona and New Mexico", an article regarding jaguars in the Southwest US, "Sixty two jaguars have been reportedly killed or captured in the American Southwest since 1900." [5] He was not seen in Arizona after September 2015 and it was presumed that he returned to Mexico, where the nearest breeding population of jaguars is located. [6] This was confirmed almost seven years later in August 2022, when a collective of conservation groups announced that he had been photographed using a motion-detecting camera, on November 27, 2021, in the central part of the state of Sonora.

Contents

His name – which is Spanish for The Boss – was chosen by students of the Felizardo Valencia Middle School of Tucson, in a contest organized by the non-profit conservation group Center for Biological Diversity in November 2015 [7] and has been used frequently by conservation groups and media. However, several researchers involved in his monitoring prefer to call him simply the Santa Ritas jaguar.

First sighting

El Jefe was first sighted by cougar hunter and guide Donnie Fenn, and his 10-year-old daughter, in the Whetstone Mountains on 19 November 2011. His hunting dogs chased the animal until it climbed a tree. [8] Fenn took several photographs of the jaguar, and later contacted state wildlife officials. In a news conference [9] organized by the Arizona Game and Fish Department the following Tuesday, Fenn stated that the jaguar, an adult male, climbed down the tree and was chased up a second tree after he had injured some of the dogs in his retreat. Fenn called off his dogs and left the scene.

The photographs represent the first evidence of the existence of a wild jaguar in the United States since the death of Macho B in 2009. [10] Several news outlets published the photographs, however a video, said to have been taken at the scene, is not publicly available.

Appearance in the Santa Rita Mountains

On 20 December 2012, through a joint news release [11] the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Arizona Game and Fish Department and the University of Arizona, announced that pictures of a jaguar taken in late November of that year, in the Santa Rita Mountains using camera-traps, belonged to the same individual photographed by Fenn one year earlier. The camera-traps were set by the Jaguar Survey and Monitoring Project an initiative led by the University of Arizona. Individual jaguars can be identified by their unique spot patterns, which allowed researchers to confirm it was the same adult male. [12]

Continued monitoring

Since the emergence of the Santa Rita photographs of El Jefe in 2012, several new pictures and some videos have been released by agencies and groups working in the area, notably by the Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center at the University of Arizona and Conservation CATalyst. [13] A video [14] from Conservation CATalyst with shots from different days gained much attention in the news when it was jointly released with the Center for Biological Diversity.

El Jefe was also monitored by Conservation CATalyst's scat detection dog Mayke. Mayke discovered the first genetically verified jaguar scats in the United States and had over a hundred novel detections of jaguar sign.

Reappearance in Central Sonora

On August 3, 2022, a collective of conservation groups named Borderlands Linkages Initiative, coordinated by Wildlands Network, announced through a news release shared with the Arizona Daily Star [15] that one of their member groups, Protección de la Fauna Mexicana, A.C. PROFAUNA, had obtained two pictures of El Jefe in an undisclosed location of central Sonora. The pictures had been taken several months earlier, on November 27, 2021, but identification –conducted by Northern Jaguar Project, a third member of the collective– was only made on the last week of July 2022 because of the time it took to retrieve the camera data, process it and compare it to an existing database of known individuals in the borderlands region. On the days following August 4, El Jefe's reappearance attracted much attention from news outlets in both Mexico and the U.S.

Significance and origin

El Jefe is significant as he represented, for four years, the only verified jaguar currently living in the United States, where they once were distributed throughout the southwest. Before this sighting, it was believed that the species had been completely extirpated in the United States.

Historically, the jaguar was recorded in western and southern Texas, Louisiana, and Arizona and New Mexico (with earlier records describing sightings in what is now California and Colorado). However, since the 1940s, the jaguar has been limited to the southern parts of the two latter states. In 2010 the US Fish and Wildlife Service was successfully sued by Defenders of Wildlife and required to produce a Species Recovery Plan and designate critical habitat for jaguars. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has since drafted an area that includes the Santa Rita mountains as the critical habitat for the species' recovery in the United States.

The northernmost breeding population of jaguars, where El Jefe most likely originated, was identified by Brown and López González [16] in eastern Sonora, Mexico, and named the Huásabas-Sahuaripa population, after two of the municipalities over which it extends. This population has been the target of several conservation efforts, most notably the creation of the Northern Jaguar Reserve, a private wildlife sanctuary first established in 2003 by Naturalia, a Mexican non-profit conservation organization [2] and Northern Jaguar Project and since expanded from its original 4,000 hectares (40 square kilometers) to 24,400 hectares (244 square kilometers) in 2015.

As part of its efforts to determine critical habitat for the species and to understand how jaguars from this population have been reaching the United States, the US Fish and Wildlife Service commissioned the Wildlife Conservation Society to develop a connectivity model, that could inform which areas are likely to serve as wildlife corridors linking breeding populations of jaguars in Mexico to known locations of recent sightings in the United States. The report included [17] a series of maps that identify the areas most likely to be used by jaguars along the western states of Mexico, and reaching into Arizona. It further identifies intersections between these corridors and major highways, as a first step in addressing the challenges any females may face trying to reach Arizona. The establishment of a breeding population of jaguars in the U.S. requires that at least one breeding female uses the U.S. as part of its territory, and is regarded as a milestone in species recovery.

Controversial development projects

The appearance of El Jefe in the Santa Rita Mountains prompted several groups to increase their opposition of the Rosemont Copper mining project still in the permitting process. [18]

The housing project Villages at Vigneto is also being contested for its environmental impact, and damage to jaguar's critical habitat has been mentioned as one of the potential effects [19]

The Mexico-United States barrier, a series of infrastructures built since 2006, most likely represent an obstacle to any female jaguar seeking to expand its territory into Arizona, from the known breeding populations of Sonora in Mexico. The increasing infrastructure and the waivers approved, releasing the Department of Homeland Security from adhering to any environmental law in its progress towards building more walls, have been cited as a major concern for recovery of the species in the United States. [20]

Mexican Federal Highways No. 2 and No.15 have also been identified by both the Wildlife Conservation Society's report on jaguar habitat and by local conservation groups as major obstacles to jaguar recovery in the region. Beginning in 2010 Highway 2 has been undergoing a series of expansions, on the stretches from the town of Imuris in Sonora, to the town of Janos in the neighboring state of Chihuahua. Wildlands Network, a conservation group focused on preserving connectivity for large carnivores, has alerted of the need to include wildlife crossings on the expanded stretches of road to provide room to roam for jaguars and other animals. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern bobwhite</span> Species of bird

The northern bobwhite, also known as the Virginia quail or bobwhite quail, is a ground-dwelling bird native to Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Cuba, with introduced populations elsewhere in the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia. It is a member of the group of species known as New World quail (Odontophoridae). They were initially placed with the Old World quail in the pheasant family (Phasianidae), but are not particularly closely related. The name "bobwhite" is an onomatopoeic derivation from its characteristic whistling call. Despite its secretive nature, the northern bobwhite is one of the most familiar quails in eastern North America, because it is frequently the only quail in its range. Habitat degradation has contributed to the northern bobwhite population in eastern North America declining by roughly 85% from 1966 to 2014. This population decline is apparently range-wide and continuing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaguar</span> Large cat native to the Americas

The jaguar is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus Panthera that is native to the Americas. With a body length of up to 1.85 m and a weight of up to 158 kg (348 lb), it is the biggest cat species in the Americas and the third largest in the world. Its distinctively marked coat features pale yellow to tan colored fur covered by spots that transition to rosettes on the sides, although a melanistic black coat appears in some individuals. The jaguar's powerful bite allows it to pierce the carapaces of turtles and tortoises, and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of mammalian prey between the ears to deliver a fatal blow to the brain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonoran Desert</span> Desert in Mexico and the United States

The Sonoran Desert is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States. It is the hottest desert in both Mexico and the United States. It has an area of 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 sq mi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Rita Mountains</span> Landform in Pima and Santa Cruz counties, Arizona

The Santa Rita Mountains, located about 40 miles (60 km) southeast of Tucson, Arizona, extend 26 miles (42 km) from north to south, then trending southeast. They merge again southeastwards into the Patagonia Mountains, trending northwest by southeast. The highest point in the range, and the highest point in the Tucson area, is Mount Wrightson, with an elevation of 9,453 feet (2,881 m), The range contains Madera Canyon, one of the world's premier birding areas. The Smithsonian Institution's Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory is located on Mount Hopkins. The range is one of the Madrean sky islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madrean Sky Islands</span> Peak-isolated biomes in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico

The Madrean Sky Islands are enclaves of Madrean pine–oak woodlands, found at higher elevations in a complex of small mountain ranges in southern and southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico. The sky islands are surrounded at lower elevations by the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts. The northern west–east perimeter of the sky island region merges into the higher elevation eastern Mogollon Rim and the White Mountains of eastern Arizona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mexican wolf</span> Subspecies of grey wolf

The Mexican wolf, also known as the lobo mexicano is a subspecies of gray wolf native to eastern and southeastern Arizona and western and southern New Mexico and fragmented areas of northern Mexico. Historically, the subspecies ranged from eastern Southern California south into Baja California, east through the Sonora and Chihuahua Deserts and into West Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black-capped vireo</span> Species of bird

The black-capped vireo is a small bird native to the United States and Mexico. It was listed as an endangered species in the United States in 1987. It is the only Vireo that is sexually dichromatic. Recovery of the species' population contributed to its delisting in 2018. The IUCN lists the species as "near threatened."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North American cougar</span> Subspecies of carnivore

The North American cougar is a cougar subspecies in North America. It is the biggest cat in North America. And the second largest cat in the New World. It was once common in eastern North America and is still prevalent in the western half of the continent. This subspecies includes populations in western Canada, the western United States, Florida, Mexico and Central America, and possibly South America northwest of the Andes Mountains. It thus includes the extirpated eastern cougar and extant Florida panther populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center for Biological Diversity</span> US nonprofit environmental organization

The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit membership organization known for its work protecting endangered species through legal action, scientific petitions, creative media and grassroots activism. It was founded in 1989 by Kieran Suckling, Peter Galvin, Todd Schulke and Robin Silver. The center is based in Tucson, Arizona, with its headquarters in the historic Owls club building, and has offices and staff in New Mexico, Nevada, California, Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota, Alaska, Vermont, Florida and Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonora chub</span> Species of fish

The Sonora chub is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae. It is found in Mexico and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gila chub</span> Species of fish

The Gila chub is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Cyprinidae. It is found in Mexico and the United States. The Gila chub is closely related to the roundtail chub. This species is commonly found in association with the Gila topminnow, the desert and Sonora sucker, and the longfin and speckled dace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaqui chub</span> Species of fish

The Yaqui chub is a species of freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae. It is found in northern Mexico and the United States. The Yaqui chub is a medium-sized minnow fish that historically occurred in streams of Rios Matape, Sonora, and the Yaqui systems of Sonora, Mexico. It is one of the five species of the genus Gila in Arizona. The Yaqui chub is closely related to G. ditaenia, and G. orcutti ; and shares several physical characteristics with the G. orcutti, but proves different by having a black wedge near the base of the caudal fin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ornate shrew</span> Species of mammal

The ornate shrew is a species of mammal in the family Soricidae (shrews). It is endemic to western North America, ranging from Northern California in the United States to the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. Eight subspecies are known, including the extinct tule shrew, known only from four specimens collected in 1905, and the Suisun ornate shrew, a species of conservation concern in California. Through skull morphology research and genetic testing on Ornate shrew populations, it has been shown that there are three main genetic subdivisions: The Southern, Central and Northern. These three genetic subdivisions of Ornate shrew arose from populations of Ornate shrews getting geographically isolated from other populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Pedro River (Arizona)</span> River in northern Sonora, Mexico, and southern Arizona, USA

The San Pedro River is a northward-flowing stream originating about 10 miles (16 km) south of the international border south of Sierra Vista, Arizona, in Cananea Municipality, Sonora, Mexico. The river starts at the confluence of other streams just east of Sauceda, Cananea. Within Arizona, the river flows 140 miles (230 km) north through Cochise County, Pima County, Graham County, and Pinal County to its confluence with the Gila River, at Winkelman, Arizona. It is the last major, undammed desert river in the American Southwest, and it is of major ecological importance as it hosts two-thirds of the avian diversity in the United States, including 100 species of breeding birds and almost 300 species of migrating birds.

The Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory (SABO) is a nonprofit membership-supported scientific and educational organization founded in 1996 in Bisbee, Arizona, USA. The mission of the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory is to promote the conservation of the birds of southeastern Arizona, their habitats, and the diversity of species that share those habitats through research, monitoring, and public education. The observatory's founders are Tom Wood and Sheri Williamson, former managers of The Nature Conservancy's Ramsey Canyon Preserve.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desert pupfish</span> Species of fish

The desert pupfish is a rare species of bony fish in the family Cyprinodontidae. It is a small fish, typically less than 7.62 cm (3 in) in length. Males are generally larger than females, and have bright-blue coloration, while females and juveniles are silvery or tan. A notable attribute of the desert pupfish is their ability to survive in environments of extreme salinity, pH, and temperature, and low oxygen content. The desert pupfish mates in a characteristic fashion, wherein compatible males and females will come in contact and collectively jerk in an s-shape. Each jerk typically produces a single egg that is fertilized by the male and deposited in his territory. Breeding behavior includes aggressive arena-breeding and more docile consort-pair breeding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge</span> Protected area in Pima County, Arizona

Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge provides 117,107 acres (47,392 ha) of habitat for threatened and endangered plants and animals. This refuge, in Pima County, Arizona, was established in 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge</span> Protected area in Cochise County, ArIzona

The San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge is located on the U.S.-Mexico border in Cochise County, Arizona. Situated at 3,720 to 3,920 feet (1,130–1,190 m) elevation in the bottom of a wide valley, the refuge encompasses a portion of the headwaters of the Yaqui River, which drains primarily western Chihuahua and eastern Sonora, Mexico. The 2,309-acre (9.34 km2) ranch was acquired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1982 to protect the water resources and provide habitat for endangered native fishes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonoyta pupfish</span> Species of fish

The Sonoyta pupfish or Quitobaquito pupfish is an endangered species of pupfish from Sonora in Mexico and Arizona in the United States.

<i>Heterelmis stephani</i> Extinct species of beetle found in Arizona, U.S.

Heterelmis stephani was a rare species of aquatic beetle known by the common name Stephan's riffle beetle. It was endemic to Arizona in the United States, where it occurred in the Santa Rita Mountains before being declared presumed extinct. It was brown in color with small black dots on its wings.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Richard Grant (October 2016). "The Return of the Great American Jaguar". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Naturalia". Website. The Northern Jaguar Project. Archived from the original on 10 April 2016. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  3. ↑ Arizona Game and Fish Department (21 November 2011). "Game and Fish confirms report of jaguar in southern Arizona". Arizona Game and Fish Department Media web page. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  4. ↑ "Macho B: Death of a jaguar". AZCentral. 22 June 2018. Retrieved 21 June 2022.
  5. ↑ David E. Brown; Carlos A. López González (December 2000). "Notes on the Occurrences of Jaguars in Arizona and New Mexico". The Southwestern Naturalist. 45 (4): 537–542. doi:10.2307/3672607. JSTOR   3672607 . Retrieved 21 June 2022.
  6. ↑ Milberg, Monica. "El Jefe, Arizona's mighty jaguar, is missing in action". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  7. ↑ Associated Press (3 December 2015). "Students name Arizona wild jaguar 'El Jefe'". AZ Central The Arizona Republic. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  8. ↑ Magazine, Smithsonian; Hatcher, Richard Grant,Bill. "The Return of the Great American Jaguar". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 30 August 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ↑ Davis, Tony (22 November 2011). "Guide describes roaring, powerful jaguar". Arizona Daily Star. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  10. ↑ "Macho B Jaguar Information". Website. Arizona Game and Fish Department. 13 March 2009. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
  11. ↑ Humphrey, Jeff; et al. (20 December 2012). "Jaguar and Ocelot Recently Photographed by Monitoring Cameras in Southern Arizona" (PDF). US Fish and Wildlife Service. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  12. ↑ Siver, Scott C.; et al. (April 2004). "The use of camera traps for estimating jaguar Panthera onca abundance and density using capture/recapture analysis" (PDF). Oryx. 38 (2): 148–154. doi: 10.1017/s0030605304000286 . Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 August 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  13. ↑ "Wildlife Monitoring Cameras Click Jaguar and Ocelot Photos". University of Arizona News. 20 December 2012. Archived from the original on 7 April 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  14. ↑ "'El Jefe' the Jaguar Captured on Video". Abc News. 4 February 2016. Archived from the original on 7 April 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  15. ↑ Davis, Tony (5 August 2022). "Jaguar that roamed Santa Ritas reappears in Sonora, conservationists say". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  16. ↑ Brown, David & López González, Carlos (2001). Borderland Jaguars. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. p. 108. ISBN   0874806968.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ↑ Sanderson, Eric; et al. (12 March 2013). "Jaguar Habitat Modeling and Database Update" (PDF). US Fish & Wildlife Service / Species documents. US Fish and Wildlife Service. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 December 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  18. ↑ Davis, Tony (28 June 2013). "Jaguar roves near Rosemont mine site". Arizona Daily Star. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  19. ↑ Bregel, Emily (14 March 2016). "Environmentalists moving to sue federal agencies over Vigneto development". Arizona Daily Star. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  20. ↑ "Border-fence dispute snares rare jaguars.com". CNN. Archived from the original on 23 October 2015. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  21. ↑ "Wild Linkages Binational Partnership: Mexican Highway Two" (PDF). Sky Islands Restoration Cooperative. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 April 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2016.

News coverage

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.