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RedditThe paw print, judging from the size of it, was left by a large cat just a day or two earlier. Emil McCain kneels over it in the sandy bottom of an Arizona canyon a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border. "This isn't a mountain lion track," McCain says, shaking his head after measuring and then tracing it onto a piece of plexiglass.
The print is huge, four-toed and without claws, like that of a large mountain lion. But the heel pad is too big for a mountain lion, the toes too close to the back pad.
We follow the cat's trail below camel-colored rimrock and live oaks to where it passes an automated camera. For the past year, McCain has operated nearly 30 heat-triggered cameras in these remote mountains that connect the U.S. borderlands to Mexico's northernmost Sierra Madre. When the film is developed days later, McCain's instincts are proved correct. The cat isn't a mountain lion—it's a jaguar, low slung and powerful, moving past yucca and volcanic rock, its eyes reflecting gold in the camera's flash.
For four years, camera traps operated by the Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project, based in Amado, Arizona, have documented two jaguars in these high, arid washes. They may have caught a third animal on film—the cat appears differently patterned than the others. If it is a female, it would be the first one known in the United States in 40 years. It's possible the cats were here all along, unnoticed, or they may be visitors from Mexico. It's also possible that jaguars are returning to—and breeding in—the United States.
The jaguar's range historically extended from northeastern Argentina through Brazil, Central America and Mexico, and followed the mountains along Mexico's Pacific and gulf coasts into Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. But the animals lost ground in the past century. In 1963, a hunter in Arizona's White Mountains shot a female, the last of her sex to be documented in the United States. Two years later, the last legally killed jaguar, a male, was taken by a deer hunter in the Patagonia Mountains, south of Tucson.
In 1969, Arizona outlawed most jaguar hunting, but with no females known to be at large, there was little hope the population could rebound. During the next 25 years, only two jaguars were documented in the United States, both killed: a large male shot in 1971 near the Santa Cruz River by two teenage duck hunters, and another male cornered by hounds in the Dos Cabezas Mountains in 1986.
The animals' prospects brightened in 1996, when Warner Glenn, a rancher and hunting guide from Douglas, Arizona, came across a jaguar in the Peloncillo Mountains of southeastern Arizona. Catching the jaguar on a ledge, Glenn snapped a few pictures, pulled back his hounds and allowed the animal to stride away. Six months later and 150 miles to the west, Tucson houndsmen Jack Childs and Matt Colvin treed a second jaguar near the reservation of the Tohono O’odham Nation. The cat, about 150 pounds and groggy from feeding, allowed himself to be videotaped for an hour.
Not long after Childs' surprise encounter, the hunter became a jaguar researcher, even traveling to Brazil's Pantanal wilderness to study the cats. In 1999, he began placing remote cameras in Arizona where jaguars had been seen in the past. By December 2001, he had his first jaguar photograph: a male weighing between 130 and 150 pounds and later dubbed Macho A. The jaguar looked healthy, well fed and heavily built, with a broad, wide skull that flowed back to a torso shaped like a cylinder of muscle. Macho A turned up on film in August 2003, and again in September 2004. Childs and McCain have since picked up a second male, Macho B, and possibly a third animal.
Comments
(2007) My wife and I seen a large cat cross the road on 48 near Durant OK. A large cat had to be scared out of a garage in Tishimago. Both were black!! Do cougars came black?
Posted by Charles A Jones on December 20,2007 | 06:11PM
This past Saturday 06/21/08, 5 people saw a large black cat in the woods behind my lake house. My sister tried to take a picture of it, but only the eyes flashed from the camera. She sent the picture to a cougar web-site and they said that cougars would flash green eyes and since these were yellow it had to be a Jaguar. I live at Lake Wauwanoka, Hillsboro, MO. Please respond. Could it be someone's pet?? It was the size of a large dog. Sincerely, Kathy
Posted by Kathy L Rickermann on June 25,2008 | 05:07PM
My brother-in-law (who is sane, sober, and wide-awake)clearly saw a cougar-sized, long-tailed cat cross the road in front of him, in his headlights, a mile from our home. We are in west TN, four miles from the river, about 20 miles north of Memphis. This cat, also, was black. We may have a jaguar, or are there dark-coated cougars?
Posted by marianne miller on October 5,2008 | 07:07PM
My sons were in a creek in North Dallas this past June and two (age 22 and 24) of them saw a jaguar. City boys yes but these guys know their animals. It was about 30 feet across the creek and about 20 feet upstream, maybe 3:00 in the afternoon. They said it turned and saw them, and then eased on up into the brush. They were surprised by it's lack of panic. They weren't about to follow. This sounds strange but they were positive it was a jaguar.
Posted by Steve Holland on November 7,2008 | 09:54AM
In 1994, I was driving on highway 77 just outside Winkleman, Arizona I approched something big in the middle of the road. As I got closer I realized it was a dead animal. I pulled over and walked up to it, it was a cat, A very large black cat with brownish spots all over. At leased a dozen cars stopped after me so I got in my truck, and drove 2 miles to my friends house. They have to see this. We go back, and its gone. Somebody took it, and all that was left was a little spot of blood. Its still hard to get people to believe my story. But its TRUE......
Posted by Nathan Broyles on December 11,2008 | 05:01PM
I was speaking to a security guard at the Big Horn Country Club the other day. Big Horn is in Palm Desert, California. The woman said that a resident had called them at about 10 pm the previous evening. The resident was walking his dog and said he saw a large black cat, the size of a mountain lion. The security guard arrived and saw the cat too. They described it as a black panther. It sounds impossible since there have only been two jaguar sitings in the last decade in the United States, and they had mottled spots as most jaguars do.
Posted by Robert Marcos on December 22,2008 | 05:35PM
Huntland, Tennessee in Franklin County. I’m 58 years old and when I was a boy approximately 12 years old an old lady that I delivered news papers to told me she saw our dog and several other neighborhood dogs chasing a black panther. It jumped the fence behind her house and escaped. The year was approximately 1962. In approximately 1963 my father was logging in the neighboring Jackson County Alabama. They were repairing the track on the bulldozer and it was getting dark. My father heard what he called a panther scream in the woods about 200 yards above them. He said they packed up their tools and went home. He had heard bobcats before, but he said that the sound of the scream was no bobcat. I worked with a guy that at the time of the sighting only lived 3 miles out of Huntland. On his way home one night a black panther ran across the road in front of him just a short way from his home. In 1998 my son and son in law and I were working with our hunting club in Franklin County taking fertilizer to the game plots. My son in law was in front of me on his four wheeler. He all of a sudden came to a halt. I had to dodge to miss him because of the bad brakes on my four wheeler. He said “did you see that”. He saw a black panther run across the jeep road about 20 yards in front of him. I didn’t see it, but have no doubt he did. I've heard of other reports of people seeing black panthers in this area and other areas of Tennessee. I believe they have been here all along, but in real low numbers.
Posted by Bruce Cox on January 4,2009 | 07:29AM
For anyone curious about this, I live near Tucson where we have captured some of the photos of the Jaguars. I was watching Monster Quest on History Channel last night and it was about the large black cats being sited near OK and all across the midwest along with the Arizona sightings. Im sure you could find the episode on History channel's site or maybe Monster Quest. Even just Google it and you will pull up a lot of information on the subject. Thought maybe it would help someone!
Posted by Judy Price on February 9,2009 | 08:24PM
Most of the accounts above are Cougars (Felis Concolor) or maybe a Jaguarundi (Herpailurus yaguarondi) for any southern sitings. Also, I can promise you that eye shine is totally unreliable. Cats (usually) have green that may switch to orange but can have green, orange, or red. Fox can have all those colors as well. Rats will show red or orange and even spiders will show enough glow to make you look twice. I.E.> eye shine won't determine kingdom, let alone species... If anyone wants to be taken seriously please, PLEASE get a photo. Your phone has a camera. I don't want to hear "I missed the shot" from a guy who catches every boob flash at Mardi Gras, I just want to see a frickin American Jaguar. Go out there and prove yourselves - Show Me A Jaguar!
Posted by Skeptic... on February 28,2009 | 02:37AM
Between Hobbs and Artesia New Mexico Hwy 529. Near dark. The year was 1976 and as my Father, uncle and I drove towards Hobbs I saw a large black cat cross the road. The tail was HUGE and very thick. My father (passenger) only say the tail and my uncle did not see it. I did not see its face but distinctly remember the back color. The area is mostly sand dunes and open rolling hills. I thought it was very strange to see any animal in this area but I know what I saw.
Posted by ECP on March 2,2009 | 04:27AM
Study after study has shown that people are not very observant, and that when they do notice things they don't remember them correctly - in fact, they often exaggerate the size of things, especially animals. The funny thing about all these puma sightings is that the puma (AKA cougar, mountain lion, Florida panther, etc.) is never black. Leopards (who only live in the Old World) and jaguars (who during the ice age lived as far north as Nebraska and Pennsylvania, but in the U. S. today are restricted to areas close to the Mexican border) are only rarely black. So why is everybody seeing black panthers? Pumas are recolonizing their former range, but it will be a long time before we have breeding populations even in areas that would be fine puma habitat. And they didn't just stick around there after being hunting out a hundred years ago, because their prey was gone too. It is possible that people are seeing black jaguars or leopards that were raised as pets and then released, but these generally have no skills to survive, and get shot by police after they are spotted lounging at a bus stop or digging out of trashcans. People will scream "I know what I saw!" but they don't. Perhaps a few "black panther" sightings in the southwestern U. S. are legitimate, but most people simply saw a black lab, a dark bobcat, or a house cat.
Posted by RD on March 23,2009 | 12:13PM
Im a hunter and avid outdoorsman in NC and in TN. I have seen some strange animals near the cape fear river in NC but the other day when i was walking in the woods i saw a very large dark cat with spots on it. since i have seen many mountain lions before i knew it was not one. when i saw it i was so scared i jumped in and swam across rockfish creek. this cat was about waist high and was probably 150 pounds. i called the local game warden and he told me it was probably a black bear. i told him this was no bear i was ten yards away from it and i have hunted a few bears before. he told me the only cat that big and that color is a jaguar but they dont live in the U.S. i will be setting camera traps and will try to get evidence.
Posted by Travis on July 16,2009 | 12:16AM
Indeed as child growing towards up my father and I did see great many Jaguar while hunting walrus in native Northeast Kallalit Nunaat. one indeed was seen eating my family repeatedly but no picture was taken of it by the me. It is supposed that they HAVE indeed traveled far to north, and are speckled still unlike mighty white bear, near pole, in north.
Posted by ittaqquolliquoit on July 23,2009 | 02:39PM