TUCSON, Ariz. — A new photo showing a jaguar near the U.S.-Mexico border has researchers excited at the possibility of a new, previously unknown jaguar in Arizona.
The photo was taken by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection camera somewhere along the border in March. It shows a jaguar that researchers say they've never seen before.
Jaguars live mostly in Mexico, but do cross the border into Arizona. However, it's rare to see them at all.
Jaguars were hunted in the 20th century, and human encroachment shrunk their habitat to the point where jaguars simply didn't venture into Arizona.
"We have three known individuals since 2015," Phoenix Zoo Field Research Project Manager Kinley Ragan said.
Ragan studies jaguars in Arizona and Mexico and said there have only been eight sightings of the cats since the late 1990s.
So far, all of them have been males, Ragan said. The last known female jaguar seen in Arizona died in the 1960s, so there's no reason for the jaguars to come this far north anymore.
"They'll come up to explore new territory and then go back down to breed," Ragan said.
The rarity of a sighting is why the CBP photo is a big deal. But it's even more important because jaguar researchers can't match its spots to a jaguar they've catalogued before.
A jaguar's spots don't change and are unique. So scientists can trace the jaguars when...or if...they're spotted.
"This is a mystery jaguar," said Russ MacSpadden with the Center for Biological Diversity.
MacSpadden's group initially found the photo through a public records request. CBP logged the sighting in a database of jaguar sightings, but did not initially release the photo.
"I'm always excited to see a jaguar reestablishing territory," MacSpadden said.
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