Endangered jaguars have won a concession from the federal government that could lead to their recovery from the brink of extinction in the United States.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that it will designate critical habitat for the wild cat, whose population has dwindled in the U.S. to the point where it is unknown how many, if any, remain in the country.
The FWS will propose specific areas for jaguar habitat by January 2011, according to a Federal Register announcement on Tuesday.
Wildlife conservationists who have been fighting for jaguar habitat were delighted.
“This is a double banner day for the Jaguars in the United States and for ecosytems in the Southwest,” said Michael Robinson, an advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has three times sued to win such protections for the jaguar.
“With critical habitat designation and a recovery plan, jaguars will have a chance to roam once again through the southwestern lands they’ve inhabited since time immemorial,” Robinson said.
The critical habitat is likely to include swaths of wilderness in Arizona and New Mexico. It could possibly also reach into sections of California, Texas and even Louisiana, where jaguars traditionally ranged, Robinson said.
Once the FWS team assigned to the case determines the needed “critical habitat” to help the jaguar survive, activities that could negatively affect the cat would be curtailed or constrained. Logging in federal wilderness areas, for instance, could be affected.
The critical habitat designation comes as the result of a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity, which had argued against the federal government’s contention that designation of critical habitat and the development of a recovery plan were not practical because so much of the jaguar’s range occurs outside the United States, according to a news release by the Center.
(In this 2006 news release the FWS argues that critical habitat in the U.S. “is not essential” for the conservation of the jaguar.)
The jaguar population in Mexico is more robust, but it is also in decline there, Robinson said. The predator traditionally roamed the arid mountainous regions of the Southwest, and also the forests of East Texas and Louisiana. It is the third largest feline species in the world, after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere.
Last March, a U.S. federal judge rejected the FWS position that designating habitat was not necessary or realistic, and ordered the federal agency to reconsider both determining habitat and the development of a recovery plan. That order resulted in the announcement Tuesday.
Other groups also have advocated for the jaguar, a top predator that is considered a key part of healthy wildlife ecosystems in the Southwest.
The American Society of Mammalogists described jaguar habitat in the United States as “vital to the long-term resilience and survival of the species” and the Jaguar Conservation Team, an interagency group, has identified millions of acres in Arizona and New Mexico that could provide habitat for jaguars, conservationists said.
These groups argued that designating critical habitat is needed to offset losses of habitat to urbanization and the border wall, which has separated the cat from its cousins along the U.S.- Mexico border, making reproduction more difficult.
The Center for Biological Diversity said it welcomed the federal oversight for the jaguar, noting that the Arizona Game and Fish Department, which has wanted to maintain control over jaguar management, was responsible for a bungled snaring operation in February 2009. That operation led to the death of the last known jaguar in the United States, a mature male known as Macho B. The death is under federal investigation. (Arizona officials maintain the trapping was inadvertant.)
“Given mismanagement of the jaguar by Arizona Game and Fish, including the death of Macho B, today’s decision is a welcome turn toward real, meaningful protection,” Robinson said.
Robinson said it was premature to speculate about whether the recovery plan will include reintroductions of jaguars, or whether the plan will simply protect habitat and hope for migrations from Mexico into the cat’s traditional turf in the U.S.
While there are no minimums set for the habitat acreage that will be designated for the jaguar — that will be determined by the federal FWS team — the point of the plan will be to foster the recovery of the cat, which was decared endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1997, Robinson said.
“We’re hopeful,” he said.
Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network
Tags: Center for Biological Diversity, critical habitat, endangered species, jaguar, Southwest, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Barbara Kessler
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