Welcome!
Through the “Eyes of the Jaguar” we envision enduring natural landscapes for Arizona and New Mexico
RESTORE THE JAGUAR TO THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST!
NEWSFLASH: The Amazing “Sombra” in Arizona’s Chiricahua Mountains, 2017
The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) is surely relieved that Sombra is not a female. Otherwise, it would face more public demand to conserve the jaguar rather than merely document the lone males seen living in the state the last few decades.
AGFD, of course, does not want jaguar recovery. It regards jaguar presence as an inconvenience, an annoyance. Read this Arizona Daily Star editorial on the matter.
Meanwhile, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, which bears the responsibility to restore America’s endangered wildlife, sleepwalks through the process of creating a “jaguar recovery plan,” which it was forced to develop by legal challenges to its ongoing neglect of our great cat.
There is a jaguar recovery plan forthcoming, a grossly deficient one, to meet legal requirements and not much more. Besides, as Steve Spangle, head of the Service in Arizona said, “if agencies or individuals choose not to follow it, that’s perfectly their right.”
The future of the jaguar in the US Southwest looks rather bleak at the moment. We pray that the handful of jaguars here are safe and healthy. We can only hope that the border wall, promised by the Trump administration, is never completed, and that maybe, just maybe, a female jaguar makes it here from northern Mexico on her own. Otherwise, we’ll have to await a new and enlightened generation of wildlife decision makers that genuinely care about all wildlife, include large natural predators.
Biologists Challenge Feds on Jaguar “Recovery” Plan. Read their Commentary in the Arizona Republic, Apr 27, 2017.
NEWSFLASH: The jaguar is finally getting a “recovery plan” after two decades since being placed on the U.S. Endangered Species list. But don’t jump for joy just yet! Read these important comments by Dr. Tony Povilitis, who submitted the original petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to have the great American cat protected in the U.S.
Almost beyond belief, the Service’s draft “recovery plan” doesn’t even require jaguars to be present in Arizona, New Mexico, or anywhere else in the U.S. Dr. Povilitis, of Life Net Nature, reviews the agency’s long neglect of the jaguar and explains what must now be done to bring this magnificent cat home!
Arizona’s latest jaguar, photographed by remote camera, November 2016, some 60 miles north of the border. He or she is the third jaguar documented in Arizona since late 2012. Photo source AGFD.
U.S. Holds Key to Recovering the Jaguar in its Northern Range
Read our column in the Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
This jaguar lives in the mountains south of Tucson, Arizona. The photo was taken with a trail camera, as part of a University of Arizona study. Jaguar night vision is enhanced by a well-developed reflective layer in the eye, thus the magical radiance of light off the jaguar’s face. 
Why won’t the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service bring back the jaguar? See our comments on its revised critical habitat proposal (Aug. 2013)
May 2013: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service admonished for sloppy recovery standards for endangered wildlife
The US Fish & Wildlife Service needs to improve its grades!
The Citizens’ Statement of Support for Recovering the Jaguar
Make Parks, Not Walls! Dear President Obama, instead of a wall-like fence that harms jaguars and undercuts American values, how about an International Wildlife Conservation Area along our border with Mexico?
Obama on the Fence: Read about the Administration’s current position on the border fence.
Our summer 2009 UPDATE on the Border Fence
A Challenge to the Arizona Game and Fish Department: PROTECT JAGUAR HABITAT
Arizona Game Official Rebuked Over Polarizing Comments
Asia has its tiger and Africa its lion – right here at home the jaguar is our big cat to protect and restore!
BRINGING TO LIGHT THE JAGUAR’S PLIGHT: Border fencing blocks the jaguar, and a huge open-pit mine is being proposed for jaguar habitat! Meanwhile, runaway land development further encroaches on critical habitat linkages…
THINGS TO ROAR ABOUT: American Society of Mammalogists speaks up for the jaguar. Arizona workgroup on track! A wilderness proposal would help jaguars, a National Forest Plan revision might, and a county plan and a private reserve in nearby Mexico will.
Cat-Against-The Wall
CorridorDesign: Check out excellent information for county planners, landowners, conservationists of all stripes (and spots).
Jaguar News from Brazil. It’s all about jaguars as endangered animals that historically lived from southern South America to the southern USA. See the October ’08 issue for an article by the Jaguar Habitat Campaign.Who says jaguars don’t occur in the USA desert: Is this video clip a fake?
LAST EDITS: Sep 16, 2017
jaguarhabitatusa.wordpress.com 
April 10, 2010 at 12:32 am |
Thank you, Tony Povilitis, for your inspiring and hopeful article in Arizona Daily Star. I too hope for jaguar recovery.
April 12, 2010 at 12:18 pm |
Dear Tony,
Its people like you that help make changes happen.
Thanks for all your hard work and dedication to this effort to help save this beautiful animal.
See you in Oracle.
May 14, 2010 at 5:38 am |
What a magnificent animal. You must not lose it.
May 14, 2010 at 5:45 am |
What an amazingly beautiful animal, I dont trust humans I hope they don’t end up harming the Jaguar.
July 7, 2010 at 12:11 am |
Hi. I found your page and was surprised that there are still jaguars in the United States. I live in San Critobal de Las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico and we are also concerned for the survival of our remaining jaguars in our rapidly depleted jungle. Here in Chiapas, we have an annual contest of painted Jaguars that is helping to increase an awareness of the jaguar plight and of the environment. This is the 3rd year of the contest and it will be inaugurated on July 31st in Comitan, Chiapas. The 30 Jaguars will be on display for 2 weeks in Comitan, 2 weeks in San Cristobal de Las Casas (in the main square) and 2 weeks in Tuxtla Gutierrez. The jaguars are then auctioned and all the proceeds go to a charity. The web page of Jaguarte is currently being revised and may not function correctly yet. The person in charge of Jaguarte is Erika Limon or Maria Fernanda (e-mail: jaguarte@gmail.com). I am also one of the artists and have compiled a CD of all the jaguars painted from 2009. If you would like to receive it I will send you one. My jaguar this year is the “Lord of the Frogs” and I wish to increase awareness for the disastrous situation of the world’s frogs as well as for the Jaguar.
I commend your wonderful work to save the jaguars of the United States.
Sincerely yours, Dr. Lauren Zarate
July 7, 2010 at 7:07 pm |
Hello Dr. Lauren – Muchas gracias for your message. It is great to learn about the annual jaguar art contest in Chiapas, and congratulations to all for an such an exciting and meaningful community approach. Yes, please do send us a CD of the 2009 art (I’ll contact you by email with a mailing address). Maybe it will inspire a “copycat” event here in our US Southwest-northern Mexico bioregion! And of course we would love to see the 2010 jaguar artwork as well.
We hope Chiapas conservationists will be very successful in their efforts to protect the jaguar and its habitat. A colleague of mine recently returned from an international wildlife conference in Bolivia that featured a seminar on jaguar. The message was “every jaguar population is important!”
All best wishes,
Tony Povilitis, PhD
Jaguar Habitat Campaign USA
December 25, 2012 at 5:06 pm |
I will be running the Tallahassee Marathon February 3rd, 2013 exclusively on behalf of U.S. charities, including Save the Jaguar and other big cat rescue funds. The project to reintroduce the Jaguar to North America is very important to all of us, and I hold the project close to my heart. I will be running another marathon on Jan 20, so this will be a tough race for me.
May 25, 2013 at 8:54 pm |
Ariel – Hope your marathons were successful. Keep pushing for the jaguar!
June 30, 2013 at 10:21 pm |
Hey Tony,
How did you EVER come up with the idea to do a bike-a-thon??
Yer bud,
John Pafford
July 6, 2013 at 3:38 am |
John – Thank you again for being on that great Bike-A-Thon we did for the Yellowstone Grizzly Bear back in 1984: Yellowstone Park to Wash. DC! And thank you for the reminder!
December 8, 2013 at 10:43 pm |
Jaguars are awesome we should like, do more to help