With more than twenty documented U.S. jaguar sightings in the past year via remote camera-traps in southern Arizona, the evidence is clear - jaguars are making a valiant attempt to re-colonize their former range in the Sky Islands region.

First photographed almost a decade ago, the fact that this neotropical cat has somehow returned to Arizona has captured the imaginations of thousands of admirers, from school children to biologists. The thought that such a beautiful, mystical animal can actually share the same landscape in an increasingly populated region has captivated the news media and sent ripples of excitement through much of the U.S. It is a story that has rekindled hope and optimism for the survival of nature and the animals that depend on it. But it is also a story about the importance of maintaining healthy, connected landscapes that has long been the goal of the Wildlands Project.

As the current trend indicates, the first jaguar photographed in 1996 was merely the scout for others of the species more recently documented in the borderlands region. We also know that these powerful, black and yellow spotted cats are following their former pathways to the mountain ranges of southeastern Arizona from their closest breeding grounds in the subtropical river canyons 200 miles south of the border in Mexico. One hundred years ago, the trek north along this wild corridor posed little problems for jaguars. Today, however, the path is full of danger around every bend.

Many jaguars are being killed or diverted from reaching their Arizona destinations, shot by fearful ranchers in Mexico, turned back by dangerous highways, and blocked by increasing numbers of fences, walls, and other security activities along the U.S.-Mexico border. With scarcely 200 animals remaining in their Sierra Madre breeding grounds, the Wildlands Project and its partners are working to secure funding to purchase several large ranches in the region in order to permanently protect that source population and to ensure that jaguars will continue their movements into southeastern Arizona.

For more information on how you can help protect jaguars, contact the Wildlands Project's Southwest Field Office at 520-884-0875.