One of the last wild jaguars known to be living in the United States was shown dead in a photo released Thursday, officials with the Center for Biological Diversity said.
Yo’oko (the Yaqui word for jaguar), was a young male jaguar who officials say roamed southern Arizona around the Huachuca Mountains in 2016 and 2017. He was named by students at Hiaki High School in Tucson.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the photo showed a jaguar pelt with markings matching his, meaning Yo’oko had been killed and skinned.
"The pattern of rosettes on a jaguar is unique, enabling identification of specific individuals," the center said in a release.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department said five biologists examined the trail photo and the photo of the pelt side-by-side and confirmed a match.
Yo’oko showed up regularly on trail cameras in late 2016 and 2017, officials said. He is one of three wild jaguars spotted in the U.S in the past three years. Seven have been confirmed by photographs in Arizona in the past 20 years, according to the center.
Officials with Arizona Game and Fish say the jaguar was killed on the Mexican side of the border, so there's really nothing U.S. officials can do.
Jan Schipper, director of field conservation research at the Phoenix Zoo, says jaguars have problems on both sides of the border.
"They're coming into the U.S., and it's almost always males, and then they're leaving to go back. So there's lots of threats along the way on both sides. So it's really unfortunate when we hear about a jaguar being killed by people intentionally," he said.
Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the rare cat's death is a "piercing" tragedy.
“The presence of jaguars in our mountains tells us that they are still whole and still wild,” Serraglio said. “The thought of having to explain to those kids at Hiaki High School that somebody killed their favorite jaguar really just breaks my heart.”
The Tucson-based Northern Jaguar Project, which released the photo, will only say that it was taken in Mexico to protect the man who released it.
“There are a handful of conservation ranchers in Mexico who need a lot more support than they’re currently getting. They’re living in sort of an adverse relationship with their neighbors sometimes," said Schipper.
And while Schipper says the latest news is discouraging, he says he hopes it leads to more awareness.
“We need the entire public, at least a majority of the public to be engaged in this. We can’t just continue to wait for a new generation to come around, because there might not be jaguar left by then," he said.
A prominent Mexican environmentalist says he's not optimistic that the person who killed Yo’oko will actually be caught because authorities just don't have enough resources.