Mtn Lions from the west, with ever increasing populations, are migrating into the eastern states,a reliable timber cruiser in Pa had seen them in the area where he resides many years ago,he reported it to the Pa Game Commision but they never acknowledged it.When I was on a hunt on the San Carlos Apache Rez I saw a Llama and when I mentioned it to some of the Apaches they just laughed and said I probably saw a goat & wouldn't know the difference.I informed them I graduated in Wildlife Mgt from the U of AZ and know the difference.In our classes we studied all of the animals we might encounter working in AZ ie Nasua narica pallida,Felis onca, Felis concolor,Lynx rufus,Pecari tajacu,Odocoileus virginianus couesi,Odocoileus hemionus,Canis niger,Canis latrans,etc.

I wonder how many "pet" Mtn. Lions there have to be to accout for all these lost ones in the past 20 years or so....

Jaguars have been seen (and killed) as far north in Arizona as Grand Canyon and the Navajo Indian Reservation virtually forever.

The Arizona Wildlife Federation's record book lists about a dozen, with most of them taken south of Tucson. Apparently only a few of the jaguars killed here were recorded, though. The Arizona Pioneer Historical Society's files has various photos of dead jaguars that are not in the record book.

A distant cousin of my wife shot the last legally taken jaguar in the Patagonia Mountains east of Nogales a few months before they were protected in about 1970. I photographed him with the cat, and it was huge. Its skin and skull was presented to the University of ARizona because he could not afford to mount it.

A couple of years later two more jaguars were killed in the same area, and although there was an attempt to prosecute the shooters both cases were dismissed.

The photo in this thread was taken recently by Arizona rancher/lion hunter Warner Glen in New Mexico. Amazingly, he had published a small book of photos showing of another jaguar he caught with his hounds in Arizona a couple of years earlier.

I'm told at least two different jaguars have been photographed this past year in trail cameras set up west of Nogales on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

I have not seen these photos but one of the cats is supposed to be a female with kittens. If so, it would be the first authenticated female jaguar I know to ever be recorded in our state.

Bill Quimby
Tucson

Very interesting, thanks for that post!