Anyone else see this on the Boone and Crockett website? What an awesome animal!

"Rare, Beautiful, and Incredible Cat
February 18, 2007
This incredible photo of a cornered jaguar was taken recently in southern Arizona. The hunter must have been very surprised to see what the dogs brought in when he got to the end of this hunt. The dogs and hunter most assuredly beat a hasty retreat once this photo was taken for proof and posterity.
Jaguar used to be a regular part of B&C's Records Program until their limited numbers and range demanded they be afforded special protection. Jaguar listings are still a part of B&C's records books, but now represent more of a piece of history than current hunting opportunity."

Ocelot in Tucson this weekend!

How big are they compared to a Mt Lion? The head on that thing looks huge.

Beautiful Animal

quote:

Originally posted by dempsey:
How big are they compared to a Mt Lion? The head on that thing looks huge.

Depends on where the cat is from but, on average, they're heavier than mountain lions. Yeah, the first thing you notice about a jaguar is the head. It is much more massive than mountain lion or leopard. The jaguar has a shorter, stockier build than either.
-----------------------------------------------
"Serious rifles have two barrels, everything else just burns gunpowder."

Good to see conservation efforts might be working!
IV

Jaguars can weigh up to 300lbs, they are smaller in the rain forests and get bigger in the open areas (like Leopards) They look alot like Leopards, but are alot thicker with bigger heads.
I think it's great that they are back!

I think they are just beautiful! Too bad I was born 75 years too late. I don't think I will ever live to see a hunting season for them again.

A few years back Outdoor Life had an article in it about a lion guide turning his dogs loose on a track, and the dogs not behaving like they were trailing a cougar. They weren't... It was a jaguar, and the guide told his client "Sorry, guy, you don't get to shoot this one", or words to that effect. For a while you could find the article on the web. It was called "Eyes of Fire".

If this is a different cat, and it could be, I think it is neat that they are making inroads back into this country.

You might think that if there were more of these magnificent animals patroling the southern border that overall traffic might be a bit lighter. Too little too late...

308,
Why didn't I think of that!!

"Illegal Aliens credited with saving the Jaguar"

Fascinating animals. Those big cats even more than wolves and other predators.

I remember how it felt when I came upon cougar tracks while hunting in Big Cypress, FL.

We have red foxes over here and once in a while the common feral crat. Huntable but not the real challenge because they do not hunt back.

I wonder if the jaguar and cougar get along. They would be hunting the same food supply. Not sure if I would want to stumble on one, but it is great that they are coming back north.

I remember readings some information about jaguars a couple of years ago and don't ask me where I read it because I don't remember. When this country was first settled, there were jaguar populations as far east as the Florida panhandle along the Gulf coast.

I enjoyed reading the comments about the jaguar. I saw one over 60 years ago in the Darien country (province) of Panama on a sandbar of a river -engaged in a dangerous enterprise -digging up a caiman's eggs. (To this day, I remember my shot (using my father's Savage 99, 30-30) kicking up sand between his legs as he raced back to the bank.{He is low slung and his vitals are lower than in other big cats. I heard that from my father and probably almost unconsciously I held low}The Indians claimed that he would hunt man. I remember that magnificent head and the look before he took off. (We were in a cayuca on the river) This old man is happy to see that others appreciate what a magnificent cat he is. (I'm a little surprised at the one in Arizona because he looked rather small-but I note that one poster says that they vary in size depending on terrain. The one I saw was in the middle of one of the deepest jungles on earth. (Ask our people who trained there for jungle warfare) and I'll bet he was twice the size. I would imagine that if anyone wants to arrange for it, spend enough time (and pay enough money) you could hunt jaguar today in some place like Brazil or Venezuela. For all I know it may be legal to hunt jaguar in Panama today. (I don't know) Certainly many locals who live around the jaguar might like to get rid of them. (Like wolves)

NEJack, they aren't coming back, this is just a stragler. Jaguars in Mexico are rare enough, but making it all the way to the U.S. border is almost beyond belief. I believe that this is the first one in the States in a few years, so it's a big deal when they do show up.

Gibson,
You are mistaken on that one! There have been several sightings recently, and like Leopards, they are rare to see even in areas where there are lot's of them. I do believe that there is a small population in the US, but they have huge ranges and probably cross back and forth accross the Mexican border. Most people couldn't tell the diffrence between a Jaguar and a Mt.Lion track, and most couldn't tell if they were looking at Jaguar track anyway, so we don't know too much about population numbers.

Jags have been in AZ off and on since the early 1990s or longer. One was killed by a rancher because it was unprotected at the time - no longer. Several are known along the border lands and have been for nearly two decades. There are well documented photos etc (prior to the age of digital cameras and photoshop).

Pretty cool beasts - if you are ever in Tucson, the Desert Museum over Jakes Pass on the West side of Tucson Mt Park has Jags in captivity - along with mountain lions. There is no comparison in size or power. Jags are huge and amazing critters.

Brent

I see in the latest SCI magazine there is an article about hunting them in Paraguay, South America. Are they importable back into the US?

No

Wolfgar, I know that the jags are physically "coming back", we have evidence of that (though I didn't realize that there have been several sightings). I'm saying that the population inside of the U.S. is not rebounding and increasing. With so few animals inside the U.S. border, and with their large individual territories, I find it hard to believe these animals are finding each other and making a breeding population. It's much like cougars in the Eastern states. There is proof of Cougars in these states, but sightings are isolated, and there is no stable, increasing population.

quote:

Originally posted by nomrcy:
I see in the latest SCI magazine there is an article about hunting them in Paraguay, South America. Are they importable back into the US?

Sorry...I posted before I read the article. They were tranquilizing the cats for research, not hunting them.

f

quote:

When this country was first settled, there were jaguar populations as far east as the Florida panhandle along the Gulf coast

I had an uncle that told me he was on a hunt that treed one in the Tensaw Delta in South Alabama in the thirties. He said he figgured it slipped off a banana boat!

quote:

Originally posted by dempsey:
How big are they compared to a Mt Lion? The head on that thing looks huge.

Jaguars are the 3rd largest Big Cat(after Tigers and Lions).

Here is the whole story on that cat. Check out
the third picture in the series. Sure would not
want to face him without a gun. Read an article
in Sport Afield about a guy who made a habit of
hunting them with a spear.

http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/DCForumID9/1959.html

quote:

Originally posted by Gibson:
Wolfgar, I know that the jags are physically "coming back", we have evidence of that (though I didn't realize that there have been several sightings). I'm saying that the population inside of the U.S. is not rebounding and increasing. With so few animals inside the U.S. border, and with their large individual territories, I find it hard to believe these animals are finding each other and making a breeding population. It's much like cougars in the Eastern states. There is proof of Cougars in these states, but sightings are isolated, and there is no stable, increasing population.

Ok, if you wanna tell me that the Cougar here in PA are solitary creatures that walked here from somewhere else and are here without breeding, I'll reserve the right to think you are an idiot.
I have friends back in NJ who don't believe we have Coyote here and so adding people out west that poo-poo the idea that we have cougar and bobcat really doesn't bother me much....

It's your ignorance, not mine.

The simple fact is that the cats are by nature solitary secretive creatures who excel at not being seen.

And without that rancher employing dogs he'd never actually SEE a cougar let alone corner a Jaguar by accident while hunting for a cougar.

Generally when such animals start being "seen" it's because their population pressure pushes them out the the fringes of "wild" areas where they are more likely to be seen.
Nobody out here is hunting cougar with Dogs yet Cougars are still seen.

And I suggest that if cougars are beeing SEEN then there are quite a few of them where it's happening.

Because that cat wouldn't be there if there wasn't another one that didn't "push" him/her out there to be seen.

There was a recent report here in PA of Momma cat (clearly a cougar) with atleast three cubs
There was a sequence of photos but the cubs were trying to be stealthy and it's not clear if there were actually three or four of them, but three are clearly visible in one photo..
And it wasn't photoshopped, because the photographer was using 35mm FILM.

Now I gotta say if there is anything better than a Male cougar better at finding a female cougar god ain't bothered to invent it yet...
Yes the big cats have huge territories, but they know how to find each other.

If you were a cougar or jaguar you'd be able to find others too, but since you aren't don't ASSume that the cats can't find each other

Trust me they are every bit as good at finding each other as they are at NOT being seen by you
or me.


AD

Allen,
Accurate take on big cat's ability to remain unseen, and I agree 100%. There are Leopards in Israel that nobody ever see's, and recently a Leopard photo was caught with a trail camera in the country of Georgia, where they were thought to be extinct for at least 50 years.
truth is they are masters at remaining undetected, and I fully agree that there are Lions in PA.
Your reply did start out rough though!!

Wolfgar,

I get real tired of people saying what animals are or are not in an area they (typically) have never been.

and some guy from michigan saying there are no cougar in Pennsylvania just rubs me wrong.

I personally have never seen a Cougar here in PA, but I have seen tracks... My Grandfather, never very talkative, and never prone to telling stories (getting much more than a few words from him would have required application of red hot iron) mentioned several times of seeing cats and their tracks on both sides of the Delaware River north of Dingmans Ferry in the 50's and 60's, but he never shot one.
He thought they were too pretty...

Go figuire this is the guy that would shoot 40+ deer a year, but then again he was primarily a truck farmer (mostly sweet corn) and had a big family to feed...

He however did shoot several bears back when NJ wildlife officials were in heavy denial that there were actually bears in that area.... but there were bears across the river in PA
but they deined that bears could either swim or simply WALK
across the river when it froze (Lord knows I've walked across the Delaware several times, so I imagine a bear can)

Mind you this was back 1965-66? ... My grandfather
passed away in 1990.

So my hearing that there are cats now doesn't require any mental stretching...

Especially since the formerly non-exsistant bears have expanded their population to nusiance proportions.

AD

That is similar to what they used to say about cougars in Nebraska. "Never have been there, never will" Until one wandered into down town Omaha and got hit on the highway.

quote:

Originally posted by NEJack:
That is similar to what they used to say about cougars in Nebraska. "Never have been there, never will" Until one wandered into down town Omaha and got hit on the highway.

Or got away or was abandoned by it's owner.

But I agree that things like lions do move around quite a lot and collared lions from the Black Hills of SD have shown up in Oklahoma City 700 km away. These are invariably young males however, so a dead kitty does not a population make.

We have had several make it into Iowa that could not be documented as former pets (and then there were others that were declawed, etc.).

Brent

Allen, what exactly don't you understand from my post? How many jaguars do you honestly believe are inside the U.S., and you believe there are several breeding pairs? And I am the idiot, right?

Nowhere did I ever say there were no cougars in PA, so you must simply be looking for a fight on the subject. I would suggest you learn how to read. I said that there ARE in fact cougars in the Eastern states, although I never even mentioned a particular state. I know that here in Michigan we have a small population, but the DNR doesn't like to admit it, much like other states east of the Mississippi. But if you think that your one cat with cubs constitutes a stable and increasing breeding population, then I would certanly disagree with you. It's a very lucky chance that 2 animals out of a very, very small number found each other and mated in such a large state. Jaguars, by comparasin, are much rarer, and have larger terrritories, so with the remote odds of cougars mating in your area, the chance of a few jags meeting up in Arizona or Texas is far less likely. Or at least it would seem to me. Just trying to think about it logically. I'm not saying I'm 100 percent sure it would never happen, but think rationally before you lash out at me.

quote:

although I never even mentioned a particular state. I know that here in Michigan we have a small population, but the DNR doesn't like to admit it, much like other states east of the Mississippi. But if you think that your one cat with cubs constitutes a stable and increasing breeding population, then I would certanly disagree with you.

Gib,
I seriously doubt that Michigan has anything like a POPULATION. They may have the very occasional errent and/or released cougar, but a sustaining number that constitute a "population" is more than slightly doubtful.

As for jags, it is not so hard to imagine a few breeding pairs in AZ. The space may be big, and the cats rare, but the habitat they use will condense them down pretty quickly. That's not to say there ARE breeding pairs, but I think it is plausible.

BTW, a stable and increasing population is an oxymoron. A population can be one, but not the other - by definition. I'm not just picking nits here, as the details are important. At least they are if you happen to be a population ecologist.

Brent

quote:

Originally posted by Brent:

quote:

Originally posted by NEJack:
That is similar to what they used to say about cougars in Nebraska. "Never have been there, never will" Until one wandered into down town Omaha and got hit on the highway.

Or got away or was abandoned by it's owner.

But I agree that things like lions do move around quite a lot and collared lions from the Black Hills of SD have shown up in Oklahoma City 700 km away. These are invariably young males however, so a dead kitty does not a population make.

We have had several make it into Iowa that could not be documented as former pets (and then there were others that were declawed, etc.).

Brent

There were a few that probably were pets. But the ones that have been sighted around where I used to work (York) and where my father lives and I go hunting (forty miles north of Omaha) are not former pets. Now, they are more common out in the western side of Nebraska, but they are in a lot of areas that according to the Game Wardens they shouldn't be.

Brent, it's definitely possible, but in my original reply said that I doubted they were making a comeback. The way I see it, Jaguars aren't exactly common in Mexico, they are pretty rare in the U.S., although they are here. I just can't see how there are several (say a dozen or more) in Texas/Arizona, that are breeding every year, and increasing the resident population.

And yes, I guess you are right on the "stable" definitiion, what I meant by that was a consistant increase, whereas I would think with such a small population, that they would be dying off. Same with Eastern cougars. You would be surprised, but in the last year, our DNR has come to the conclusion that we may have about 30 or more cougars in the state. And Its VERY possible that more than a few of these are escaped pets, which makes it hard for me to believe that Pennsylvania has a growing resident population. I would be inclined to think that cats there are transients, as well. Though I never mentioned PA at all until yesterday. I was referring to Michigan the entire time. I don't see how cougars in PA can be so much remarkable different than those in MI.

Also, I don't get how we can all nit-pick each other on these opinions, I've never seen a jaguar, or a cougar, and I'm guessing that neither you, Brent, or Allen, have seen mating jaguars. I believe we are all going on speculation, correct?

This thread has been replete with "sightings" of jaguar in the US. 308Sako nailed it at the very outset. The animal in the picture is probably an ocelot. The jaguar weighs in at near 300 lbs. He is a strictly tropical animal. He is considered so aggressive that Indians of the Darien country (Darien Province of Panama) said he hunted man when I was there in 1946. Does anyone think that such an aggressive animal could survive in the continental US? Gibson is right -that the jaguar is not found even today outside of tropical Mexico (Yucatan) and I would bet that no one in living memory has ever seen a jaguar in the Yucatan peninsula (or else all those tourists who visit the Mayan ruins had better insist on armed guides!) As to that picture at the beginning of the thread. A jaguar weighs in at near 300 lbs as I said. He also has another feature. His head is simply huge (look at the face head on of a tiger) and he wears a ferocious look. I saw one give me a snap glance at nearly 40 yards or so and I still remember it. (The early colonial Spaniards named him "El Tigre" -not out of any sense of confusion. It was because of that same fierce and ferocious look that the Bengal tiger gives. They meant to compare the jaguar to the Bengal tiger) I'm not up on whether there are mountain lions in PA.- but I do know something about jaguar from having seen one, talking to people who saw jaguar a lot and a father who spent some years in jaguar country. Just remember that 300 lb figure - bigger than an African lioness and twice the size of a very big leopard - and ask yourself if he could escape notice in any state of the US.

Gerry,
As someone who has been studying big cats all my life, I can tell you with 100% certainty, that the cat in this photo is not an Ocelot...not even close!! Ocelots are only 2x larger than a house cat, and their markings are totally different. The cat in the photo is definetly a Jaguar, and it is a rare one that weighs 300lbs, 180 would be more accurate for even a large male.
I do believe that there are breeding populations in the USA-read my previous posts- and that they do cross the border in search of mates.
I do not think that tere are alot of them in the USA, but I think that they are resident in the Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico border region...that is a huge area, why would anyone doubt that they roam this huge area?
Just as an example, Leopards in Zim's Lowveldt have a home range of up to 30 miles that he patrols every few days, but in Siberia, they range up to 500 square miles. Why? it all depends on the availability of food and competition from other males. In Siberia, leopards have to work much harder to stay alive, than the cats in the Lowveldt where there is much more food etc.

As someone who has seen both ocelots and jags, I cat tell you that Wolfgar, not 308Sako, is the only one doing any nailing (well Gibson is too).

I know they have been confirmed beyond doubt in SE AZ. But a population greater than a couple of cats is doubtful from the last I heard from reliable places.

Brent

That aint no Ocelot.......