Russ McSpadden

Russ McSpadden is a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, which analyzed the images and confirmed the discovery of a new wild jaguar that was documented in Southern Arizona in Dec., 2023.

There’s been another jaguar sighting in southern Arizona, and it’s the eighth different jaguar documented in the southwestern U.S. since 1996, according to wildlife officials.

A hobbyist wildlife videographer who posts trail camera footage online captured the image of a roaming jaguar late last month in the Huachuca Mountains near Tucson, the Arizona Republic reported.

A spokesman for the Arizona Game and Fish Department said the agency has authenticated Jason Miller’s footage and has confirmed this is a new jaguar to the United States.

The animals were placed on the endangered species list in 1997 after being removed in 1980.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated about 750,000 acres of critical protected habitat for the jaguars along the border in southern Arizona and New Mexico.

Authorities said Arizona jaguars are part of the species’ northern population, including Sonora, Mexico’s breeding population.

“I’m certain this is a new jaguar, previously unknown to the United States,” said Russ McSpadden, a southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “After being nearly wiped out, these majestic felines continue to reestablish previously occupied territory despite border wall construction, new mines, and other threats to their habitat.”

Officials said the rosette pattern on each jaguar is unique — just like a human fingerprint — and helps identify specific animals.

Center for Biological Diversity

Top image shows the new jaguar documented in southern Arizona; the middle and bottom images show Sombra and El Jefe, both jaguars already known to conversationists. Each cat's rosettes, which are as unique to them as human fingerprints, are shown.

The new video shows that the cat is not Sombra or El Jefe, two jaguars known to have roamed Arizona in recent years.

The gender of the newly spotted jaguar is unclear.

“Whether male or female, this new jaguar is going to need a mate. Now is the time for us to have a serious conversation and take action to bring jaguars back,” Megan Southern, jaguar recovery coordinator with the Rewilding Institute, told Phoenix TV station KPNX.

McSpadden said jaguars have been “continuously reintroducing themselves to former territory in the United States.” In recent years, two other jaguars have been spotted in Southern Arizona; Sombra and El Jefe.

Both of them are males. It’s not possible to tell yet whether the new arrival is, too. But McSpadden said a female this side of the border makes a new breeding population here possible.

“That’s the promise of a true rebuilding of the population this side of the border,” he said.

According to McSpadden, it’s a day many jaguar conservationists in Arizona and Sonora alike are waiting for. But regardless of gender, every new jaguar here, he said, is a reminder of how tenacious the third-biggest cats in the world are.

“They're just such powerful and beautiful beasts,” said McSpadden. “And they don't give up, you know? I think we could all aspire to be that way.”

UA/USFWS

El Jefe spotted in Arizona in 2015.

The Rewilding Institute’s Jaguar Recovery Coordinator, Megan "Turtle" Southern, says this new cat is both a symbol of hope, and a messenger.

"What jaguars are telling us with their movements is that they need access to both sides of the border. And this new jaguar is an ambassador for connectivity and really a messenger that we need to keep wildlife corridors open," said Southern.

Southern says human-made obstacles, like sections of border wall, endanger the natural corridors jaguars use to navigate their massive natural territories.