The Federal government should take a more active role in restoring the endangered jaguar to southern Arizona and southern New Mexico.
In the past, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has successfully reintroduced endangered species to the wild, including gray wolves to the Rockies, condors to California, and desert bighorns to the southwest.
In the last fifteen years, a few jaguars have been seen and photographed in Arizona and New Mexico. However, no breeding jaguars have been verified in America since the 1960's.
It is promising that the USFWS recently recommended 838,232 acres in Arizona and New Mexico as "critical jaguar habitat," but that is not enough. The USFWS should actively reintroduce the jaguar, drawing from more stable populations in South American and Mexico.