1 - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

Editor's Note:
The Department of the Interior's
list of endangered species includes
our "Desert Wanderer,"
the Jaguar. In trying to obtain
illustrations for this article,
it became apparent that pictures
are rare also. The San Diego
Zoological Society came to the
rescue, but the species depicted
are the Brazilian type, not the
Mexican brand. The main
difference is size and as the author
states "150 pounds is a lot of cat."
If one of these spotted cats
should wander into your
desert camp, it would give good
cause to wonder just who
was endangered.
2ANDSOME in his richly, goldenhued
coat, spotted with its black rosettes,
the mighty jaguar is by rights
a resident of the tropical forests. Yet,
this big South and Central American cat
is so highly adaptable he can make an
excellent living in dry, thornybush country,
and even in harsher desert lands.
Indeed, not many years ago, these
great cats were hunting the wild and arid
stretches of Texas and up into Arizona as
far north as the Grand Canyon, even on
into northern New Mexico. True enough,
those haunting the wild regions of these
more northern climes were not the ninefoot-long,
300-pound denizens of Brazil's
Matto Grosso, but smaller editions of
around some 150 pounds, which is a lot
of cat, anyhow.
What with plenty of game —peccaries,
by K. L. BOYNTON
©1976
mule deer, white tails, pronghorn —to be
had and ideal spots remote and protected
for family raising, the jaguars stood a
good chance of becoming well established
in the U.S. Southwest. But the heavy
human encroachment into regions suitable
or not for habitation that has
occurred so rapidly during the last few
years has taken its toll. Less and less
wild territory remains, and so the
jaguars occasionally seen now are probably
not entrenched residents, but drifters
from down Mexico way.
The thing is, that inside this big spotted
cat is the good old wander-urge
based mainly on the arrogant confidence
that comes of being so big and powerful
and in the possession of a killing knowhow
that makes eating regularly a certainty.
With this combination of pluses, there
is no need to stay put in a given place no
matter how attractive, and the roaming
jaguar, jogging along on his padded feet,
can cover a lot of territory. What to him
international boundary borders? So the
chances are good that in the xerophilic
forests of New Mexico, in the wild and
arid thorn bush country of Texas, and in
remote canyons of Arizona, the deepthroated
cough of these big cats might
well be heard even today. Clad in his
camouflage coat, the jaguar, stretched
out loafing on a tree limb, is almost impossible
to see, with the sun shining
through the leaves making dancing spots
of light and dark, too much like the rosettes
of his design. Easy to be passed
by not seen, but seeing, only his big yellow
eyes moving, watching.
Come dinner time, the jaguar backs
down the tree trunk, his sure-grip claws
making his descent easy and safe. Once
on the ground he starts his prowl, nose,