Invasion of the Jaguars By George Ziemann December 2001 Before I even get into this story, I would like to remind the casual reader that I grew up in the suburbs of Toledo, Ohio. It was my experience that if you went out tramping through the woods, the wildlife you would likely encounter would most likely be a cow. Other than that, you could spot rabbits, maybe a deer or squirrels. Never saw a snake more dangerous than a garter snake. Arizona is famous for its rattlesnakes, but I've never seen one. Killed a few scorpions, though, and have seen at least one monster tarantula and quite a few smaller ones. In the last 18 months, the fringes of Phoenix have been visited by bears, coyotes and even mountain lions, all in search of food. Which brings us to the latest story, which I believe I actually saw first in the Washington Post. This isn't the entire story, just the key points. TUCSON, Ariz. - (AP) A jaguar was photographed in December by a motion-activated camera set out in southern Arizona to monitor potential jaguar corridors near the U.S.-Mexico border, providing new evidence that jaguars, the biggest cats in the Western Hemisphere, visit the southern part of the state and may even live there. "It is great to know that jaguars are roaming our borderlands, at least occasionally," said Brad Van Pelt of the Arizona Game and Fish Department. "We will continue to monitor the area to see if the animal is a transient or attempting to establish a territory." Arizona is believed to be at the northern end of the jaguar's historic range, which once covered nearly all of Latin America. Jaguars were last documented in Arizona in 1996. Biologists believe the 1996 photos and the one shot in December captured three separate cats. The game department isn't revealing the location of the latest sighting to protect the big cat, which is a young male weighing around 175 pounds. Officials would like to capture one, attach a collar with a radio transmitter, then return it to the wild and monitor its movement. Conservation groups that want to see the jaguar repopulate the American Southwest were delighted by the new photographic evidence. As the parent of a small child and a homeowner who likes to go outside occasionally when it's not 130 degrees, I have to say that I'm not half as thrilled about jaguars as the fish and game department or the conservation groups. And as disturbing as it would be to wake up one morning and find a jaguar cooling itself off in my pool, there is something else about this story that bugs me. No one has seen a jaguar in Arizona for five or six years, but someone is paying to maintain obviously expensive motion-activated cameras set out in the searing desert heat of southern Arizona to monitor "potential jaguar corridors." This fits right in with another unusual sight that I've seen on the side of the road at night on I-17 going north from Phoenix to Flagstaff -- the tell-tale blue-gray glow of about 6 or 8 TV or computer monitors on a hill alongside the highway. Foolishly, I thought this might be double naught spy law enforcement types hanging out in the dark with night-vision infrared heat-seeking equipment to watch for illegal immigrants or drug smuggling or Boris and Natasha. They were probably just looking for jaguars. Or maybe the jaguars are just a new weapon being used by the Border Patrol since we decided to "tighten" our borders? I'll bet we start hearing about packs of snow leopards and perhaps a "potential Siberian Tiger corridor" along the border with Canada. I now turn my attention to the "conservation groups that want to see the jaguar repopulate the American Southwest." What kind of boneheaded idea is that? They're "delighted" to see 175-pound cats in Arizona. Do these people live in the Southwest? I'm guessing not, unless maybe they have 250-pound dogs. A related news story -- Deer kind of like the peaceful suburbs of Princeton, New Jersey, especially since the bears haven't moved in yet. And I bet the kids love it, too ("Look, Mommy! It's Bambi"). Unfortunately, they carry Lyme disease and are generally consider pests by the Princetonians. The residents aren't waiting for the bears. It seems that this town has hired sharpshooters to come in and patrol their town -- with the apparent authority to gun down deer with high-powered rifles in residential neighborhoods. So now I'm starting to get it. I'm beginning to see what the conservation groups are so delighted about -- Urban Hunting Safaris. Sure. Let's bring in jaguars. And how about adding crocodiles to the canals? Piranha in the city fountains. Call the zoo. Have them let out the cheetahs, leopards, lions and tigers and any other large hungry predatory carnivorous beasts they might have available. This could be a great thing. It would bring communities together, huddled in rooms with no windows. It would give the gangbangers something to shoot at instead of, say, me. But I'm thinking that the old folks in Sun City aren't going to be outrunning too many ferocious felines, especially considering that the golf carts usually top out at about 25 mph. It's no wonder that people in Arizona are allowed to carry guns. I'd even own a rifle if I thought I was going to get a shot at a jaguar on the way to the grocery store. Follow-Up Sept. 29, 2009 -- Stumbled upon this old story and need to clarify a couple of things. I have since seen a very large rattlesnake. There was only one jaguar. It was captured in the last year or so and given immunizations, after which it died almost immediately.