Detection Project: A Report on the Jaguar in Southeastern Arizona

Transcription

1 The Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project: A Report on the Jaguar in Southeastern Arizona Jack L. Childs Emil B. McCain Anna Mary Childs Janay Brun Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project The constant barking of the hounds announced that they had their quarry at bay. Matt Colvin, our young hunting companion, ran ahead, leaving us far behind. After a long hard climb up the steep, brushy mountainside, my wife, Anna, and I finally arrived at the source of the excitement. We could see the hounds and Matt. They were all looking up into the branches of an alligator juniper tree. Expecting a mountain lion, we did not see the jaguar at first glance, so well did he blend in with the tree and surrounding hillside. Our eyes finally focused on the most magnificent animal we had ever encountered. This life changing event took place on August 31, l996. On March 7, 1996, just six months prior to our encounter, professional guides Warner Glenn and Kelly Glenn Kimbro were hunting mountain lions in the Peloncillo Mountains along the Arizona-New Mexico border. Their hounds brought to bay an adult male jaguar on a rocky cliff. Instead of reaching for his rifle, Warner grabbed his camera and took several photographs before he gathered his dogs, tipped his hat, and rode away grateful for the experience. This Photo Emil McCain. was the first time a jaguar had ever been photographed alive in the wild in the United States. The Glenns photographed a second adult male jaguar in the same area in February The jaguar was virtually unknown in the desert environment of the American Southwest in l996. Historic records suggested a small and declining population until the 1940s. After this time, only an occasional jaguar was reported about every 10 years. The species was therefore generally thought to be absent from the area and was overlooked for protection by the Endangered Species Act. Following the two 1996 sightings, Wild Cat News - 1

2 the Arizona and New Mexico Game and Fish Departments joined forces and created the Arizona-New Mexico Jaguar Conservation Team (Jag Team) in l997, complete with a Scientific Advisory Group of the world s leading jaguar biologists. This team of state and federal wildlife and land management agencies, university biologists, conservation groups, local landowners, ranchers and concerned citizens was formed in a collaborative approach to help protect and manage the jaguar and its habitat in Arizona and New Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally listed the jaguar as an endangered species in the United States the same year. In March 2001, Anna and I founded The Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project with the help and support of the Jag Team. The focus of this project is two-fold. Our goals are to describe and quantify the current status and distribution of jaguars in the borderlands region and apply our findings to sound conservation management through the Jag Team and its land management members. We want to learn as much as we can about jaguars in southern Arizona. Are these animals residents here or dispersing immigrants from a population in Mexico? If they are residents, what is the size of their home range? What types of habitat do they require? What are their major prey species? Most importantly, do we have a viable breeding population in Arizona? In order to answer these questions, we set out remote sensing trail cameras and established a network of track transects. We focused on major travel routes and natural funnels through areas of core and connective habitats in the mountains of 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.

3 our surveys in areas where we located high densities of mountain lion sign. Our belief was that jaguars might use the landscape similar to lions and travel along the same routes. We used our knowledge of mountain lion behavior, gained during more than 40 years of experience following them in these remote mountain ranges, to predict the most likely places to find Photos Emil McCain. jaguars in this desert environment. Our trail cameras photographed our first jaguar in December The Jag Team s Scientific Advisory Group estimated that he was 3 to 5 years old. Because the jaguar is so deeply rooted in Latin American culture, we began referring to this jaguar as Macho A. Macho being the Spanish word for male and A because he was the first jaguar of our study. Between 2001 and 2004, we captured three photographs of Macho A, all of his right side. Therefore, we never learned the spot pattern on his left side. Shortly before and shortly after we last photographed Macho A, our cameras obtained two photographs of the left profile of a jaguar. These pictures could either be 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 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 - 3

4 Above: Jack Childs (left) and Emil McCain survey tracks in the Borderlands. Photo Emil McCain. Macho B from 1996 were analyzed by the Jag Team s Scientific Advisory Group, who aged him between 2 and 3 years old. Macho B remains in Arizona today, crossing back and forth between several mountain ranges in Arizona. We believe he also ranges south of the border into Sonora, Mexico. So far, our surveys have recorded Macho B at 83 locations over a minimum observed range of 1,360 km 2. We have photographed him during every month of the year, and quite continuously from 2004 and into At the time of the latest photograph in March 2007, he was between 12 ½ and 13 ½ years of age. Some scientists speculate that our southern Arizona jaguars could be transient individuals that were displaced by dominant males from a known breeding population approximately 180 miles south in Sonora, Mexico. Theoretically, displaced juveniles could then grow to maturity in Arizona, eventually returning to the population in Mexico as breeding adults. Our data would suggest otherwise. Macho A and Macho B are clearly not dispersing juveniles. Macho A was present as an adult animal from 2001, at 3 to 5 years old, to 2004, when he was 6 to 8 years old. We know that Macho B was in Arizona as a 2- to 3-year-old in 1996 and has been here continuously from 2004 to Did he spend the intervening years in Mexico contributing to the gene pool, or was he simply in a portion of his range in Arizona we were not surveying at the time? In September 2001, an aspiring young naturalist named Janay Brun joined the project. She soon became a leading field technician. One sunny May morning in 2006, Janay and Emil were checking cameras near the border and came upon fresh jaguar tracks. Kneeling in the sandy wash, Janay studied the track in the early morning light, which accentuated the rounded toes and enormous plantar pad. She turned and said, I ve seen this track before. She then said that in 1999 in a distant mountain range 50 miles to the north, she had seen a large spotted cat jump from a rocky ledge and disappear into a steep brushy ravine. Minutes later she heard a low, cough-like roar repeatedly sounding out of the canyon where the cat had disappeared. In 2002 and again in 2004, Janay found and photographed the tracks of a large cat on this same trail. After returning from the day s camera work, Janay showed Emil her photo albums. There were hundreds of photos of tracks: mountain lion, bobcat, coyote, and badger. But there, on the first page were the tracks that had inspired her passion in tracking cats. The pudgy toes and robust pad were compressed in a huge track that was unmistakably jaguar. We had not previously monitored this mountain range, and this information made us wonder if this could be where Macho Wild Cat News - 4

5 Photo Emil McCain.

6 B had been living between 1996 and Janay returned to place cameras where she had seen the cat. In September 2006, she photographed Macho B. With 13 more pictures over the next six months, our suspicions were confirmed. Just recently, we videotaped Macho B spraying scent marking the tree where Janay had seen him seven years before. It is impossible to prove that a species or individual animal is absent or does not exist. This is especially so with an animal as secretive as the jaguar. Just because we did not document Macho A after 2004 or Macho B from 1996 until 2004 does not mean they were not present. Similarly, the fact that we have not yet confirmed any female jaguars in the Borderlands does not mean that none exist. Other biologists in the heart of the jaguars range in Central and South America have been puzzled by the small number of females photographed by trail cameras (~35%). The best explanation is that females occupy smaller home ranges and have more restricted movements than males, thus reducing the probabilities of being detected by passive monitoring techniques like trail cameras. From 1900 through 1995, 61 jaguars were documented in Arizona and New Mexico (confirmed records with existing hide, skull or photographs). Twenty-five of these were identified to gender, with 18 males (72%) and seven females (28%). Three were cubs belonging to two females. These demographics are not dissimilar to populations in the rest of the jaguar s range. This leads one to conclude that although jaguars may never have been abundant in the Southwest, there was at one time a small breeding population in residence. Using the 25 most reliable and spatially accurate locations of the confirmed jaguar records in Arizona, the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) and the Jag Team s Habitat Sub-Committee created GIS habitat suitability index models that identified 30% of Arizona as potentially suitable jaguar habitat, primarily in the southeastern mountains. In addition to photographing jaguars, our cameras have taught us a great deal about the ecology of the borderlands region; we have photographed 25 other wildlife species. Our data and records from AZGFD confirm an abundance of natural prey in the area. The area supports an abundance of Coues whitetail deer, desert mule deer, javelina, white-nosed coati, three lagomorphs and four skunk species. The area contains the highest densities of mountain lions in the state, as well as abundant bobcats, coyotes, foxes and black bears. This confirms that the area s prey base is capable of supporting jaguars. 6

7 With the help of the AZGFD and Jag Team, the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project has collected more than 15,000 images of 25 of the region s wildlife species. The data shows a diversity of life capable of supporting a jaguar population. Pictured are a jaguar (right), black bear (lower left), ringtail (lower right), and cougar (bottom). Photos Emil McCain. Wild Cat News -

8 Pictured are a bobcat (top), coati (left), and jaguar (bottom). Photos Emil McCain. 8

9 Jaguars, like mountain lions, lead solitary lives in a land tenure system to reduce competition for prey and increase breeding opportunities. Finding prey and locating mates are likely the two primary factors influencing where a carnivore chooses to spend its time. Scent marking and vocalizations facilitate communication between individuals to maintain mutual avoidance and locate mating prospects. We now have video footage of Macho B scent marking and anecdotal observations of jaguar vocalizations. This data, in combination with the longevity and frequency of our camera data, strongly suggests that these jaguars are Arizona residents. Including the two Glenn sightings, four adult male jaguars and a possible fifth unidentified individual have been photographed in the United States in the past 10 years. Why would these males remain in the area for so many years if their basic requirements were not being met? It is highly unlikely that they would stay in the absence of females. If there has been a female jaguar in Arizona during the last 10 years, the odds are that she would have had at least one litter. Female jaguars are capable of bearing one to two cubs every two to three years. She would be fortunate to raise half of these to maturity. It is therefore possible that a single female could have raised from three to five young here in the Borderlands during the last 10 years since we have been documenting Photo Emil McCain. males. Some of the cubs would likely be females with the potential of raising litters of their own. If this speculation has any merit, there is the potential for more jaguars to be out there. We hope to step up our efforts to find them as funding becomes available. The habitat, as well as the prey base, appears to be there. Our failure to locate a female after six years of searching is discouraging, to say the least. However, the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project remains optimistic and dedicated to the continuing search for this elusive female. After all, many colleagues doubted that we would ever find Macho A and were amazed when we found Macho B. Wild Cat News - 9