Reviving the Roar: George Schaller’s Borderland Jaguar Road Trip

Over the past 70 years, legendary scientist Dr. George Schaller has worked with the planet’s most charismatic species, having conducted extensive field research with gorillas, pandas, lions, tigers, snow leopards, and jaguars. We invited George to visit the U.S.-Mexico border just shy of his 91st birthday. As the northern bookend of the jaguar’s range, this region looks dramatically different from the Pantanal of Brazil where George’s jaguar studies were based.

We toured locations where jaguars have been recorded in the U.S. and one of the northernmost places with jaguars in Sonora. We slept under the stars and discussed what it would take to restore a breeding jaguar population in the United States. Throughout the trip, George consulted with local scientists, landowners, and organizations about best practices for jaguar research and habitat conservation, how to engage communities in the conservation of top predators, and his opinion on both passive and active reintroduction.

© Beth Wald

Traveling on a dirt road just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, Border Patrol trucks sped past us, and the border wall dominated the view. We passed the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, where the Sky Island Alliance and Wildlands Network use motion-triggered cameras to monitor wildlife activity and quantify the effects of the border wall.

This region is textbook basin-range topography – rugged canyons and low mountains divided by broad open plains. In southeastern Arizona, we visited important north-south wildlife corridors, places where tall cottonwoods and sycamore trees provide cooling shade and the diverse understory offers forage and cover. A close encounter with a Gila monster delighted George, and we watched as two dozen wild turkeys flew up into the tree canopy to roost. We know from remote camera photos that mountain lion, black bear, coyote, and mule deer frequent the riparian and desert habitats we walked through.

© Beth Wald

We introduced George to Warner Glenn, who may be the only person who has seen and photographed two different wild jaguars in the United States, ten years apart. Warner is a rancher and founding member of the Malpai Borderlands Group, which has vast territory under conservation easements, preventing development and sub-division of land.

George seemed surprised that crossing the border into Sonora was a straightforward, undramatic experience compared to the fury in the national media. We drove away from the port of entry and its rolls of concertina wire, en route to the privately owned conservation lands of Cuenca los Ojos.

© Beth Wald

At the heart of Cuenca los Ojos is the restoration of land, water, and wildlife after a century of overexploitation and degradation. We traversed rolling hills and steeply descended a rough switchback road on excursions to learn how wetlands and streams are being restored with rock dams, how young cottonwoods and sycamores re-established themselves once cattle were removed, and how four endangered species of fish are now thriving. Cuenca los Ojos has abundant water and jaguars too.

Returning to Arizona, along with Conservation CATalyst, we went to some of the Sky Islands that jaguars have used as stepping stones to move across this landscape. These mountain ranges have water, prey, and shelter. From an overlook, we saw the same 30-foot-tall border wall to the east, but to the west, the land was continuous – there was no wall. The open section is where public outcry over former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey’s illegal, makeshift shipping container wall led to its removal in 2023. The permeability here provides hope that jaguars will continue moving between Sonora and Arizona.

The Sky Islands have valuable habitat, yet the Santa Rita range, where the jaguar El Jefe resided, and the Patagonia mountains are actively threatened by mines in various stages of development. Some like Copper World/Rosemont and Hermosa are plowing full steam ahead. We need more public outcry.

© Beth Wald

We discussed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s refusal to identify jaguars in the U.S. as essential to the core population and how the agency has dragged its feet on the protection of additional critical habitat. The Center for Biological Diversity has a pending petition to USFWS to designate an added 14.6 million acres of critical jaguar habitat in Arizona and New Mexico.

We know eight male jaguars have been sighted in the U.S. since 1996, and in recent years there have been three to five jaguars near the Mexican side of the border. In George’s view, solitary male jaguars will not stay around unless there are females. He suggested that a reintroduction project could address this, as has been done with success in northern Argentina.

If there was one thing George stressed, it was that jaguars are adaptable; if there is prey available, they will do well. George saw enough to know that between public land and privately protected areas on both sides of the border, the habitat is there, the prey is there. Bringing jaguars back is within reach, and the only barriers to their recovery are social and political.

© Beth Wald

Megan "Turtle" Southern

Before joining The Rewilding Institute, Turtle was the coordinator of the Northern Jaguar Project, where she provided programmatic, fundraising, and administrative leadership. During her 15 years with NJP, she helped to establish and grow the 58,000-acre Northern Jaguar Reserve in Sonora, Mexico, organized scientific research projects and conservation education among youth, and worked extensively with ranchers to promote coexistence with felines and other wildlife.