WEBVTT - Ep. 26: Eater of Us: The Borderlands Jaguar 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:10.280 Mm and so this is what they found. Like mm hmmm. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.439 On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, will journey 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.439 into the realm of the most mysterious and rarest of 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.920 beasts in the United States, like a ghost. Sometimes he's 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.000 here and sometimes he isn't. We'll talk with a man 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.519 who documented the first live one in the United States 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.839 and see how it uprooted the conservation world and how 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.960 the story rose to prominence in national media. You might 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.720 recognize his voice when you hear him. We'll do a 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:49.280 classic bear Grease nerd out with Arizona biologist Jim Heffelfinger 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.920 to understand how this animal makes a living. And we'll 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:58.200 meet yet another legendary man of the Southwest, though he's 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.600 been gone for over thirty years. You'll hear his voice 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:06.160 and receive an impartation from his passion. What we're talking 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:11.960 about is panthera Anca, the eater of us, the Borderland's jaguar. 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.840 I doubt you're gonna want to miss this one, But 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:20.360 before we start, I've got a question for you. Before 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.360 this intro, would you have known that there are jaguars 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:28.520 in the United States? Well, the answer is kind of complicated. 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.279 You would think like an orangeish cat with black spots 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.120 would be so obvious, but very much not so. Those 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.280 spots are there for a purpose, to hide them for 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.480 a couple of months until they get big enough. This 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.160 doesn't sound fair chase to me, Jim. They gotta give 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:45.000 these coups deer and have Elena's and jaggerundi's a chance. 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.639 My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear 0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:00.640 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.280 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.560 story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land. 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:14.800 Presented by f HF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.359 and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:29.000 the places we explore. 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If you're buying stuff from f 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.639 h F Gear, check it out Fish Hunt Fight f 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:21.960 h F Gear. The topic at hand is a rare 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.720 thing in modern times. I absolutely love it when the 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.360 natural world jolts us back to a healthy posture of 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.840 awe and mystery by revealing something we didn't think was possible. 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:45.000 Jaguars are a jungle cat heavily mythologized by the indigenous 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:49.160 people of Central and South America for millennia. The English 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:54.520 word jaguar is derived from the Tupi Guarani language of Amazonia. 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.720 Their word is ya guaria, and it means either of us. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.840 It's easy to understand why humans have been entranced by 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:08.320 these beasts from the very beginning. A giant, yellow spotted 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:12.360 cat with an oversized head and the mystical rosette pattern 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:16.640 of his spotting makes him almost like a ghost. In Mexico, 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:21.440 he's known as LT Gray and The Brazilian layman's term 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:26.040 for the jaguar is Ownsa, but in science textbooks he's 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:31.239 known as Panthera anca. The genus Panthera is the order 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:36.719 of roaring cats. Yep I said, roaring, not purring. That's 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:41.560 pretty cool. The tiger, lion, leopard, and jaguar are the 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:47.239 only cat species anatomically outfitted to roar. For the record, 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:52.200 don't let my perceived enthusiasm for felines be mistaken for 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.159 having any love in my heart for domestic cats. I 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.680 only like the big main ones that work for a 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.760 living and put the or a god in every living 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:08.800 thing in the jungle or the desert, I reckon. Jaguars 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:13.799 are celebrated throughout their territory, which ranges from northern Argentina 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:19.120 into Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, and then the cats continue 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.159 up into Central America all the way into Mexico. In 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.880 southern Mexico, jaguars are still very much at home in 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.080 the dense, tropical like region. But as you had north, 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.880 something very interesting begins to happen. The distribution of Panthera 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.560 anca begins to hug the east and west coasts. The 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.760 further north you go into Mexico. By the time you 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.560 reach the geopolitical barrier of the US and Mexican border, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:50.400 jaguars are at the very fringe of their range, and 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:58.719 I mean fringe in natural systems. Fringe habitat creates interesting 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.159 populations of an alimos that are quite different than their 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.920 ken at the core of the range. They're the outliers 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.880 who utilize their survival strategies to the fullest point of 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.720 leverage to make a living. You see, these jungle cats 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:18.400 don't seem to particularly like living in arid regions, but 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.440 it's just tolerable enough for some of them. I like 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.200 to think of these fringe populations as special, almost like 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:31.120 the frontiersman of the species testing the northern boundaries. It's 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.000 a mystery, but in their travels they must perceive the 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.880 nuanced limitations of the land as they head north, and 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:43.040 perhaps their own limitations and the magnetism of the south 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.960 overrides their wanderlust. And there is a point when they 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.880 go no further, and that point is just barely inside 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.960 the boundaries of the United States, and here these big 0:06:55.040 --> 0:07:00.640 cats are known as the borderland's jaguars. I want to 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:05.039 understand these Borderlands, jaguars, their biology, and the overlap of 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.520 how humans have interacted with the eater of us in 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.360 the Southwest. But first we've got to hear a story 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:16.400 that became a foundational piece of the jaguars modern North 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:22.160 American story. It involves none other than our friend Warrener Glenn. 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.760 I'll give you a head start to understanding the significance 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.440 of what you're about to hear, because Mr Warner kind 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.200 of plays it off like it's no big deal. But 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:36.720 before this, we didn't think they came here anymore. This 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:41.840 story took place in extreme southwest New Mexico. That was 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.280 a completely new express So let me go back to 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.280 a little bit. But Dad and I went to Mexico 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.320 twice trying to catch the jaguar. I mean, it was 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.800 their beautiful cat, and they're very hard to get, very 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.960 hard to trail, little catch and uh dangerous for the 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:03.240 Mexican jaguars down here or known for killing dogs. And 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:05.800 we never had any luck, so Daddy never got to 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:11.400 see a jaguary. Now, in nine Kelly and I were 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.800 hunting in the telling Cia Mountains right east others, and 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.160 we split up that morning and she actually took one 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.280 dog with her maple, and she hit that track. She 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:23.560 didn't know what it was, she thought she but she 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:25.760 knew it was a cat. She knew it was either 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.480 a line that line, and that's what we are, a 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.960 bump cat that But the way it was pulling out, 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.640 she figure was a line. So she told me which 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.080 the way it was going, and I cut ahead of it, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.520 and and I finally got to where I could hear maple, 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.320 and of course my dogs heard it and went tour. 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.319 And what happened the track I read in the book. 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.760 The track was very big, and you thought it was 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:54.040 a big mountain, big old and so that when they 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.080 all got with her, that thing evidently had heard my 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:00.760 dogs and turned around and went back the other way, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.720 and it went along. We trailed that from that point on. 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:07.040 We trailed in well, actually there was a junk track 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.920 from then on, and we trapped probably another four miles 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.160 before they had finally bade it. And of course I 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.319 was trying to keep up on the mule. Kelly had 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.560 gone back to get our client, and I was trying 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.840 to keep the dogs in here, and we didn't have 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.480 tracking callers in on the bull. And when I first 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:27.760 I finally caught up to where I could see him 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:31.040 baying off in a across a big basin with the 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.440 head of a canyon there on the other side, and 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.720 I could tell they had it bade on top of 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.520 this big boulder was kind of a small bluff cliff there, 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.640 and it looked to me I could just see it 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.360 crouched there is that it was probably I was looking 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.800 a half a mile across and I couldn't really tell. 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.000 I thought it's big old tom Land. So I told Kelly, 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.280 I said, they've got that thing bade, and I'm gonna 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:56.320 get over there to it so I can get with 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.680 those dogs while you're bringing the client. So when I 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.680 call over there, I tied my mule and I walked 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:08.240 down about forty yards. It was really rough, steep mountain there, 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.440 and I looked around the opinion tree there and I 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.760 can see that thing right, And then that's the first 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.199 time I realized it was Jaguar and it was crowd 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.920 just on top of that, and I it looked over 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.160 and saw me about the same time, and that's when 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.520 I took the first I ran back up to my 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:28.080 mule and got a camera out of my saddle horned pouch. 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:30.800 And ran back down there where I wasn't. I took 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.800 a picture. I took three of it there, and then 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:37.200 the jaguars stood up and looked around, and then he 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.520 went over this rock out of the side of me, 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.360 and I thought that sudden. He was gonna jump off 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.920 of there, and the dogs were all around the base 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.720 of this cliff, but it was too far for him 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:50.839 to jump. It would have been like a forty ft 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.040 straight off jump. So he came back over. So I 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.920 got pictures of him coming back over the rock, and 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:00.160 then he jumped off the uphill side and took off, 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.000 and the dogs camera had got on his track, so 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.319 the chase was on. So I ran back, got the 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.040 mule and went off of them, and I told Kelly 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.679 what was going on. I said, Jelly to Jaguar, and 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.640 he said, I've got to get those dogs stopped and 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:16.360 and get before I get something hurt. Well, they bade 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.520 it again off in a big canyon there, and when 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.920 I caught up, and when I got I tied my 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.040 mule bag. I could hear that thing. It was really mad. 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.760 It was roaring at those dogs. And I tied the 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.679 mule back of ways, and then I slipped down their 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.600 foot was the camera and it was trying to get 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.600 those dogs back. And that thing looked up and saw 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.280 me and one day to word word could go back 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.439 in to crevice, sir, and boy, here he came, but 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:50.400 right his eyes locked onto mine, and here he came. 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.000 He knew that I was a problem, and how I 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.760 don't know, And those dogs made him head on. There 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.320 was a billion I've got pictures of that meeting. And 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.680 and then they all fell off back into that crevice 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.280 and I went in there and he had one dog 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.560 by the hind leg and he broke the It was Maple, 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:12.960 and it ran in there on top of the shelf, 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.880 and they kicked a bunch of loose gravel and stuff 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.800 that oh, and it hit that that stuff. He hit 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.160 the jaguar on the rear in and he whipped around. 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.720 And I got back and got the dogs on top. 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.320 And as soon as I got the dogs back, then 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.880 he went ahead and left. And I tied four of 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.760 those dogs to the only and Maple was hurt. She 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.880 couldn't go. He had a broken leg. So two of 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.240 the young dogs left with it, and I thought, boy, 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.280 I didn't know what to do. I just went in 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.640 and made sure if they and they came back before 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.840 I got ready to go try to catch up thed 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.720 I think it ran ran them back all sous and 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.400 I was glad. I was glad for it to get 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.920 out of there. But that was that was the first one. 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.320 That was the that was the first documented jaguar in 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.200 the first picture of a jaguar in the United States. 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.560 It was the first picture of a live jaguar in 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.000 the wild in the United States. That's why it got 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.360 gained a little bit of notorat or whatever you call it, 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.480 I don't know what, just because and really at that 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.199 time they weren't on the endangered species list, but they 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:24.200 were on the proposed endangered list, and so it wasn't 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.720 of course they were protected state law and all side 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.000 by the federal law, but but it was they weren't 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.160 on the endangered species But I still I still didn't 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.240 know for sure whether to make it come out in 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:41.120 public with that picture, because I had some good pictures 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.840 of that thing, and I just didn't know what the 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:47.080 reaction would be. So I had a little meeting with 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.280 some of the renters around in the Maltpipe Borderlands Group, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:52.760 and we decided to do that's a neat thing to have. 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.079 But yeah, this win. Yeah, we thought it was a 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.880 need and it's not gonna come up here and put 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.160 some rentro out of business. I mean, they're just a 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:07.560 few of the come through. Yeah, And so I went 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:15.319 in and public with the pictures. The history of jaguars 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.760 in the Southwest United States goes back a long ways, 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.520 like to the plis to see kind of long ways, 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.200 and it's a complex story. At this point, all you 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.640 need to know is that this was the first live 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.720 jaguar documented in the United States, and it started a 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.280 tidal wave of interest in the Borderland jaguar. It was 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.080 essentially like someone showing up with a legitimate photo of Bigfoot. 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.040 The major news outlets in the country featured the old 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.680 Cowboys jaguar story. The eyes of the global conservation world, 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.640 We're on Mr Warner in the series of beautiful photos 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.120 he took of the Borderland's jaguar, and it came with 0:14:54.240 --> 0:15:00.840 a flurry of research to feed America's new fascination. Jim 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:05.120 Heffelfinger is the Wildlife Science Coordinator for the Arizona Department 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.720 of Game and Fish. He's an author and a full 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:11.320 research scientists at the University of Arizona. More than that, 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.560 he's a wealth of information on all things wild. He's 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:18.280 been stomping around the jaguar fringe habitat of Arizona and 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.720 New Mexico for most of his life. And I want 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.760 to understand jaguar biology. I think Jim can help us. 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.359 I want to start off with Jim in some deep history, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.440 like way deep. The Pleistocene is a term used to 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.440 describe a time period on Earth. It started roughly two 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.600 point five million years ago and ended about ten thousand 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.960 years ago, which was just like yesterday. This roughly corresponds 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.360 with the glaciers of North America retreating, the climate warming 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.880 in a bunch of species going extinct and Homo sapiens arriving. 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.960 It truly was a fantastical period of North American biological history, 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.080 the likes of which Marvel Studios couldn't rival. With a 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.160 hundred million dollar budget and the world's most creative digital animators, 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.360 the place was wild. When you see a jaguar today, 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:19.960 know that he's got some deep history. Here's Jim, as 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.520 I understand it. The jaguar used to be I mean, 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.200 it was a different species of jaguar that's now extinct. 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.800 But it was a very large jaguar, like like most 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.520 things during that time period and what is now North America, 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.080 they were giant. It's fascinating because I believe it was 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.040 Panthera Augusta was the was the big like pleist to 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.600 see jaguar, and then over time it got smaller and 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.920 smaller and smaller and smaller, as as the big animals 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.120 as eating got smaller. I thought it was interesting that 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:54.680 it out competed and survived all the big cats except 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.480 for the Mountain lion, and those are the two big 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.080 ones that we have left. Sure, we had a North 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.360 American chea, we had North American lion, We had a 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.879 North American smilet on fatalis the big savor tooth cats, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.240 and everything was bigger. We had ninety pound beavers in 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.480 the places seen. We had bison that has a very 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.040 clearly demonstrated reduction in size through time to the to 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.399 the bison we know from the eighteen hundreds and so 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.080 a lot of things got smaller. So that was a 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:21.159 pretty pretty typical kind of relationship. We had dire wolves, 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.560 which were giant wolves in the place has seen. Why 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.720 did things get smaller? I think it's probably just a 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.679 change in productivity when in that glacial environment you had 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.320 so much disturbance and you just had a lot of productivity, 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:34.800 and you've got abundance of prey animals. We had so 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.360 many different hooved animals in North America, many of them 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.080 that evolved here and became extinct and and never never 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.640 survived to anything else. What we have in North America's 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.199 day is just the remnants of what it used to be. 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.400 Even with the big cats. I mean, we have two 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.000 big cats. The closest relative of the jaguar, as I 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.800 understand it, is the African leopard. They kind of came 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.760 from the same place, diverged from each other in the 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:03.359 African leopard is still in Africa, but they're similar species. 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.800 And I've read where they can breathe. They've read them 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.359 in captivity and I actually produced fertile offspring, which is 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.159 kind of wild, right, So the cats are prone to 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.680 do that. You can you can cross tigers and um 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.440 and lions. The Lager of Napoleon dynamite fame is actually 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:21.600 a real thing. They can do that in captivity. So 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.880 cats will sometimes cross, But the jaguars is from that 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.479 group of panther, which is a roaring cats that are 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.760 vocal and they roar like that. And so you're write 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.200 there related to those old world cats that evolved over there, 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.639 as a jaguar came over here. Talk to me about 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:39.600 the roaring cats. Yeah, that's uh, just some class of cats, 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.240 those big cats that they call roaring cats, and they 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.199 make a vocalization, a lot of different vocalizations, and the 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.399 jaguar kind of has an ug ug ug that it 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:51.200 will repeat an increasing frequency and then fade off like that. 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:53.720 So it's a it's a breeding call, is that what 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.200 it would be, right? It's mostly a locating breeding call 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.720 to breed because they're solitary animals and they will get 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.639 together and and pair up just for the breeding season. 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:03.920 But that's it. They don't they don't have male and 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.080 female groups walking around together just hunting together. They just 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.680 get together and breathe and it's about a one day 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.840 affair and then they're separate again. So how big are jaguars? Yeah, 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.880 in South America and what we say is the real 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.280 jungle habitat, they're much bigger, more diversity of prey, a 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.359 lot more bigger items, at a higher density. It's so 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:25.680 jaguars down there would be two hundred, two hundred and 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.920 fifty pounds for males. A hundred twenty five pounds for 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.719 females is an average. But up in this northern what 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.120 we call the borderland jaguars, they're much smaller than than 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.600 you would find out at Central and South America. And 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:39.840 they're not a whole lot actually not a whole lot 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.159 bigger than that our mountain lions are here, and so 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:44.159 some of the there's there's not a lot of figures, 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:46.320 of course, because we don't have a huge sample size 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.480 of jaguar weights from Arizona, New Mexico and the northern 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:51.520 Mexico border lands. But some of the weights that we 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.679 do have seemed to average around for males eighty pounds, 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:59.480 two hundred pounds for for females, and so considerably smaller 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.800 than Central, well in South American jaguars. Some indication that 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:04.960 some of these at the northern end are a little 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.040 bit heavier than those in Central Mexico. But again you're 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:10.840 dealing with a sample size problem. And if you weigh 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.399 a dead jaguar, does it have forty pounds of deer 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.199 or elk inside its belly or has it maybe not 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.199 eaten for two weeks. That can make a huge difference. 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:24.280 I read that Dale Lee recorded his biggest male jaguars 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.800 away a hundred and sixty two pounds. I think that's 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.560 the record too. I just dropped a name that will 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.280 need to know if we want to understand the robust 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:37.720 swath of jaguar history. Dale Lee was from Arizona. He 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.720 was a legendary mountain lion and jaguar hunter in the Southwest. 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:45.560 We're going to learn more about dale and just a bit, 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.520 but first I want to ask Jim about some fundamental 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:56.800 jaguar biology. Talk to me about jaguar biology. Where do 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.800 they live, what are they eating? What do they do 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.399 to make a living? Yeah, so jaguar the epicenter of 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.080 jaguar distribution is South America. If you look at their 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.400 map that their core areas South America and Central America, 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.440 they'll they'll be in little lower densities going down all 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:16.639 the way to Argentina. So they're adapted to this several 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.200 different tropical forest types down there. But that's that's really 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:22.680 the core of where they live. But they're so adaptable 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.639 they've been able to adapt northward and there's a if 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.200 you look at the distribution. There's this long finger from 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:30.960 South America that goes up the east coast of Mexico 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.480 and goes into South Texas historically, and then there's another 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.360 long finger that goes up the west coast of Mexico 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:40.680 into just the southern part of Arizona and New Mexico. 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:43.360 And it's really incredible that you've got an animal that 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.440 is typically kind of a jungle animal that has adapted 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.480 to some of these more arid forest types all the 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.439 way up the east and west coast of Mexico and 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:57.439 dipping into dipping into Arizona and New Mexico and dipping 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:01.960 into Texas historically. So they're made prey because of that. 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:06.399 That center of distribution is tapers and peckery is what 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:10.320 we call have elena in the in the southwest, coatis armadillos, 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:12.080 some of those things that you see kind of in 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.760 a jungle environment. These northern borderline jaguars of course, are 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.800 feeding mostly on Kyle's whitetail deer, the small version of 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:20.960 white tail deer we have in the Southwest. We've got 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.280 collared peckery that we call have alena that are up 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.640 here in these mountain ranges, So those things probably make 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:30.560 up a vast majority of their diets. For the borderline jaguars, interestingly, 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.960 they're eating skunks, they're eating little coatis, they're eating basically 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.000 anything they can get their hands on. And and I 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:40.480 remember hearing that even UH warners jaguar encounter in NIX 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:44.480 that he mentioned that that smelt like skunk described the 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:48.600 morphology of jaguar, like what does he look like as 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:50.639 compared to the mountain lion? Most people would be pretty 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.159 familiar with the mountain lion. Proportion of that, the jaguar's 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:55.359 head is going to be huge, and the proportion of 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:57.240 the tail is going to be shorter actually than a 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:00.119 mountain lion. So uh, a jaguars tail is it to 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.679 be not longer than half of the body length of 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:05.040 the head. If you take the head and the body together, 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:07.720 and they have those those um the spotting which they 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:10.240 call rosettes, which because they look like a flower, so 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:12.199 they're kind of an open, broken rosette, but they have 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:15.920 black dots on the inside, as opposed to a leopard 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.440 would have those open rosettes but no spots on the inside. 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.720 And so that that body pattern too is like a fingerprint. 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.240 And that's why when we get trail camp pictures of 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:28.000 a jaguar, and and and oftentimes they're setting up trail 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:30.760 cam on both sides of where they think of jaguar 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:32.840