Jaguar ‘Cinco’ is now a regular ‘resident’ of Southern Arizona

Researchers studying the latest jaguar to be seen in Southern Arizona now say he’s primarily living in the region.

The University of Arizona’s Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center said the fifth jaguar to be detected north of the United States-Mexico border in two decades has been repeatedly spotted in the same places.

The charismatic big cat, who researchers called “Cinco,” was first seen on a trail camera in November. The most recent times he’s been recorded in Arizona were between March 25 and March 27, according a news release from the center.

Researchers declined to say where the apex predator had been spotted in order to keep him safe.

“Repeated use of the same corridors, water sources and travel routes — along with scent marking behavior, demonstrates consistent movement patterns rather than a random occurrence,” Wild Cat Center researchers wrote.

The center has been tracking Cinco through “non-invasive” tactics, such as using cameras and collecting his DNA samples.

Center directorSusan Malusa said researchers believed he was male shortly after his discovery, but they publicly confirmed his sex in March.

The big cats were mostly driven out of the state or slaughtered by hunters and U.S. government-sponsored programs decades ago.

All jaguars spotted within the past 15 years have been male. The last recorded female jaguar in Arizona was inadvertently killed in 1963 by a hunter in the state’s White Mountains. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists jaguars as “near endangered,” having last assessed the population in 2016.

‘A good learning moment’

Myles Traphagen, the borderlands program coordinator for the Wildlands Network nonprofit, based in Salt Lake City, said Cinco’s continued presence indicates that the region’s environment is still hospitable to jaguars, despite their absence from the area for decades.

Cinco’s frequenting the same spots doesn’t mean the United States has a resident population yet, as no jaguars are reproducing north of the border, but Southern Arizona’s climate has enough of a prey base, water and open space to sustain one.

“It shows their selection preference and that there’s a definition of a jaguar habitat in Southern Arizona,” he said. “I think this provides a good learning moment for the conservation movement at large to identify what spaces and corridors to protect.”

Traphagen credited the efforts of numerous environmental groups, plus controlled burns and grazing management done by the state’s Game and Fish Department for preserving the environment in their absence.

But, Traphagen still questions where the jaguar came from and what prompted his movement. 

Once they are able to fully track the jaguar’s movement, he said, environmental advocates will know what areas and routes they should dedicate their conservation efforts.

The Wild Cat Center over its 15 years of work has relied on a volunteer team of at least 40 specially trained “citizen scientists,” who set up and monitor cameras year round, collect DNA samples, log data and inform the public of the center’s discoveries.

In the years that the center had been conducting research, Malusa said, they’ve averaged about one jaguar and one ocelot in the nation at any given time, with a new cat detected every three to five years.

The southwestern United States had historically been part of jaguars’ migration range until the mid-20th century. Traphagen said they could be fleeing persecution in the south.

He said catching the jaguar and putting a GPS collar on him would give researchers a fuller picture of where Cinco came from and why he’s here.

“Unless we have an unlimited number of cameras, we’re not going to know that,” Traphagen said.

However, environmental groups have been hesitant to do that since 2009, after what Traphagen called a “botched” capture led by Game and Fish officials, who’d actually set out to trap mountain lions.

Instead, they caught a jaguar known as Macho B, believed to be 15 or 16 years old. They injected him with a sedative called Telazol, put a GPS collar on him and released him with plans to track his whereabouts.

Though Telazol is often used to tranquilize mountain lions, Traphagen said, it’s toxic to cats classified in the pantera genus, panthers included.

Once researchers noticed Macho B had lost an abnormal amount of weight and his movement was limited, they recaptured him, determined his kidneys were failing and euthanized him.

However, GPS tracking jaguars can be done correctly, Traphagen said. And it happens regularly in Mexico and Central America. 

“In Tucson, we suffer from the Macho B hangover,” he said.

‘How long can we wait?’

A breeding population of jaguars in the United States would require more than one female, per Traphagen. 

But that possibility — along with the habitats of various types of wildlife — is threatened by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s plans to build 222 miles of “smart” barriers along the border.

“How long can we wait for that to happen?” Traphagen asked. “And do we have time?”

In October, Kristi Noem, then-secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, waived numerous policies to “ensure the expeditious” construction of barriers and roads at all nine Border Patrol Sectors. At some sectors, those laws included environmental protections.

The completion of a wall without passages for jaguars and other species to cross through would have unprecedented effects, he said.

“All these animals need more space to survive, not less,” he said.

He said animals will either walk along the border in search of a passageway until they die or thirst or hunger, or they’ll turn around and then return, putting themselves at risk of being struck by cars traveling on Federal Highway 2 in Mexico, which runs parallel to the border.

“There’s going to be a lot of animal death on both sides the border,” Traphagen said.