Started in 2010 by Feline Photo Project rancher Jose de la Cruz Coronado, this monthly newsletter, “Desde el Rio Sahuaripa,” has prominently featured the Northern Jaguar Reserve and the local jaguar population, referring to it as the pride of Sahuaripa.

April 2010 – “La Reserva del Jaguar del Norte un orgullo mas de Sahuaripa” (pg. 2)

May 2010 – “Jaguares en mi rancho” (pg. 3)

August 2010 – “Ranchos vecinos de la Reserva del Jaguar del Norte” (pg. 2)

Dear Friends,

This month we’re going to talk a bit about another part of our job as guardians of the Northern Jaguar Reserve: office work. In addition to our surveillance and environmental monitoring at the reserve, we spend several days every month archiving and reviewing the data we get from our field trips, as well as the photos taken by the camera traps.

High temperatures and heavy rains at the reserve in the summer months make it difficult and sometimes dangerous to work in this area. During part of July and August, instead of being in the field, we dedicated ourselves to organizing and analyzing our informational databases. These contain thousands of photos of wildlife that have been captured by camera traps at the reserve this year.

One part of the analysis we did this month was to continue work on the photo identification of individual jaguars and ocelots. So far this year, we have had seven different jaguars and 13 ocelots photographed at the reserve. According to statistical analysis, we expect a density of one jaguar and two ocelots for each 100 square kilometers. These are important results as we demonstrate the importance of preserving as much land as possible, since jaguars and ocelots require large areas for survival. For jaguars, the result is similar to last year. In the case of ocelots, we don’t have previous years’ data for comparison.

Let’s talk about the three most photographed ocelots at the reserve and on the neighboring ranches: Linea, Susto, and Fenes. The ocelot “Linea” is a female and was photographed for the first time in February 2009; she inhabits the northern part of the reserve at Los Pavos and Dubaral. Thanks to the camera traps, we know that Linea is the mother of an ocelot called “Pepito” – both mother and cub have been photographed together several times. The name Linea comes from a line on the side of her body, and Pepito is diminutive of the Spanish name José. The male ocelot “Susto” (which means scare or fright) is also an inhabitant of the northern part of reserve. He has been photographed since May 2009. As with the jaguars, we can now start to imagine the relationship between Linea and Susto. Both ocelots were photographed at the same camera station several times during April and May. “Fenes” (this name comes from a river in Romania) is a female ocelot that lives on the reserve at La Ventana and on part of the neighboring ranch Las Tesotas, but she was also photographed at Los Pavos. All three of these ocelots have been photographed on both sides. Other ocelots are only identified by one side view, and we will talk about them once we know more.

A great piece of news is that because the total number of active cameras in the field continues to grow each month, we have more and more pictures of different species. Some of these photos document very important species for conservation – such as the badger (Taxidea taxus), an endangered species that is rare to obtain a picture of, and two species of birds, Montezuma quail (Cyrtonyx montezuma) and northern turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), both of which are under special protection. It is very exciting to get so many images of all sorts of wildlife each month.

We have been preparing scientific works that we will present at the 10th Mexican Mammalogy Congress and the first Latin American Mammalogy Congress in September. Our topics include: “Comparison of the community of medium and large mammals based on the presence of cattle,” “Permanence and population density of jaguars at the Northern Jaguar Reserve, Sahuaripa, Sonora period 1999-2010,” and “Activity, abundance, and success camera trapping the badger (Taxidea taxus) in the Sierra of Sahuaripa, Sonora.” All of these new scientific studies have been possible through the biological monitoring that we do (and which previous guardians contributed to) at the Northern Jaguar Reserve – and of course, thanks to the continuous support of all of our donors.

Well, that is all for now; it is time for us to head back to the reserve. We expect and hope that the rains won’t keep us from our field work and that next month we will be telling you about our new adventures at the reserve.

Best regards,

– Miguel & Carmina

Our jaguar guardians, Miguel Gómez Ramírez and Carmina Gutiérrez, have worked at the Northern Jaguar Reserve since October 2008. As the reserve’s resident biologists, Miguel and Carmina patrol lands to keep out poachers, sustain ongoing management of the reserve, maintain a network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of reserve lands and waters.

Dear Friends,

This time there are many things to tell you about our activities at the Northern Jaguar Reserve. Despite the intense summer heat in this region, we had a good time working with friends – including the Wild Horizons crew, Rick Williams, some neighboring ranchers, and the reserve’s vaquero Laco and his family.

In early May, we installed a solar-powered weather station at Los Pavos. Our friend (and the new reserve manager) Rick Williams helped us with the process. It was a different experience from many others we have had at the reserve. We started with a hole in the ground, and then it was necessary to secure a metal post in the hole with a cement mix that we made – that was hard, but very fun. The final steps were mounting and configuring the weather station’s CPU and sensors. Now the weather station is working, gathering daily readings at Los Pavos, and we are ready to install another one! It is important to have weather records at the reserve and adjacent areas in order to get a better understanding of the biological events that happen in the area.

At the end of our stay, we took Wild Horizons’ cameras and film equipment out of the field. Unfortunately, the batteries, sensors, and camera performance were affected by the heat, and they were unable to film jaguars at the reserve due to these failures. The Wild Horizons team will return better equipped for the challenging task of filming a jaguar, and we will be waiting to help them.

Regarding jaguar photographs at the reserve and on neighboring ranches: In the last two months, there were several jaguars recorded. Between May and June, there were 12 records of four different jaguars: Mayo, Cecilio, and possibly two new individuals at Babisal and the neighboring Rancho Las Tesotas.

Mayo was photographed many times at different places on Los Pavos and Dubaral between May 9 and June 21. He was very near the Dubaral ranch headquarters in early June. It seems that Mayo has increased his territory on the reserve, and this possibly means that he has occupied Perrito’s place. This is a little sad for us because Perrito is our favorite jaguar.

On a second review of the jaguar pictures from recent months, we concluded that the potential new jaguar at Dubaral in April was actually Cecilio. Cecilio was first photographed on the neighboring Rancho Los Alisos in February 2009, and he appeared in the same place one year later this past February. The great surprise is that we recently had four photographs of Cecilio at Dubaral on May 22 and 23, approximately 23 kilometers northwest of Los Alisos. So, what is Cecilio doing at Dubaral? Maybe looking for a female?

Moreover, we have two images of jaguars which seem to be new records since both spot patterns are different to other jaguars we’ve documented. One jaguar was photographed on May 9 at Rancho Las Tesotas, which is owned by Sergio Amaya, who recently joined the Feline Photo Project. This is great news for him because he can see right away that it is good to protect jaguars. The other image of a jaguar was taken in Arroyo Babisal at the reserve on June 27. Because we only have different, single side views in these two cases, right and left respectively, it is possible that both pictures correspond to the same individual. We need obtain both sides of these jaguars (or this jaguar) through paired camera-trap stations.

Of course, there were many photos of wildlife from the cameras as with each month, thousands of photos to archive! We also saw military macaws at Los Pavos, one puma at Babisal, another puma at La Ventana, two rattlesnakes, and a lot of deer. The reserve provides the feeling of a good wilderness experience.

We want to thank Diana Zamora, a student at the University of Querétaro, for her support in this field work during the time that Carmina has been recovering from her ankle injury. Diana was able to take samples of the skin of amphibians at the reserve, which she will analyze with the help of other biologists in search of Chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis). This fungus causes the chytridiomicosis disease that has resulted in declining amphibian populations around the world.

Finally, a new element to the team is Diego Gutiérrez. Diego is a biologist who comes from Guadalajara, and he will be in charge of the Feline Photo Project as its field technician. We warmly welcome him and wish him great success.

All the best,

– Miguel & Carmina

Our jaguar guardians, Miguel Gómez Ramírez and Carmina Gutiérrez, have worked at the Northern Jaguar Reserve since October 2008. As the reserve’s resident biologists, Miguel and Carmina patrol lands to keep out poachers, sustain ongoing management of the reserve, maintain a network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of reserve lands and waters.

Dear Friends,

Oh! This time we have had eight photos of three different jaguars that were photographed in the northern part of the reserve. Possibly the male jaguar “Mayo” is the new landowner at Los Pavos, since “Perrito” has not been seen for a while.

Mayo was photographed on the night of April 19th by two camera trap stations installed at Arroyo Los Pavos. Later the same night, in early hours of April 20th, Mayo passed by another camera trap in a place we call “Kitty City” – an area between the southwestern end of Los Pavos and Dubaral. Then on the morning of April 20th, he went to Arroyo Carricito at the northern edge of Dubaral. Two days later, on April 22nd, he returned to Los Pavos and was photographed in Cajón Los Pavos. Finally, Mayo appeared again on the night of April 25th, the last sighting for this month. Wow! What a long way to travel! It seems that he is possibly exploring his new territory and is looking for food and females.

“Balam” is the second jaguar captured in this month’s pictures. This jaguar was photographed on April 9th near Kitty City at Dubaral. This is the second time that Balam has appeared. The sex of this jaguar is not yet clear in the photos, but we think that Balam is a female because the locations are in Mayo’s territory. We will see soon.

A third jaguar was also detected this month. It occurred a kilometer west of Dubaral’s ranch headquarters on April 17th. This seems like a new individual because the spot pattern is different from the rest of our jaguars. It is an adult and the sex is again not clear in the photograph. Unfortunately, only one of the two cameras that are installed at this camera trap station worked properly. So we don’t have both side views of this jaguar.

Early in April, the bat researchers Christa Weise and Scott Richardson and the herpetologists Jim Rorabaugh and Abi King visited the Northern Jaguar Reserve to teach techniques to study bats and herps to biology students from CESUES-Hermosillo (a graduate technical college). Also some people from the Yaqui tribe came from the Sierra de Bacatete to learn and get to know the reserve. We had a great time with all of them, catching bats and some herps. Seven species of bats were recorded in our bat surveys. In our travels, we also found a West Mexican coralsnake (Micrurus distans) that the herpetologists said is the northernmost record of this species.

The Wild Horizons team, directed by Alicia Decina, arrived at Los Pavos at the end of the month. They will film jaguars and other wildlife at the Northern Jaguar Reserve for a Discovery Channel production. We are very excited! Nick and John (the cameramen) are staying at the reserve right now; they will spend every night this month sitting in a blind waiting for any animal activity. We heard that they already have a puma on video and other animals too, though no jaguars yet. It is not easy, but it is also not impossible. Just wait, you will see.

From Miguel: I must tell you that I am very sad because Carmina broke her ankle in the last days we were at the reserve this month. She will stay in town to recover for several weeks, maybe of a couple of months, and she won’t be able to travel with me to the reserve. However, Carmina is working at home despite her injury. I just want to express my desire for her to have a quick recovery and hope that she walks again soon in the jaguar lands.

Best regards,

– Miguel & Carmina

Our jaguar guardians, Miguel Gómez Ramírez and Carmina Gutiérrez, have worked at the Northern Jaguar Reserve since October 2008. As the reserve’s resident biologists, Miguel and Carmina patrol lands to keep out poachers, sustain ongoing management of the reserve, maintain a network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of reserve lands and waters.

West Mexican coralsnake photo by Abi King

Dear Friends,

Wow! This time we had many photos of the same jaguar. The jaguar called “Mayo” was photographed several times at Los Pavos on March 10th and 15th by four different camera trap stations. The photo record shows us Mayo’s travel from north of Los Pavos – possibly he came from the Río Aros on the morning of March 10 and then went to the center of Los Pavos on the same day. The next photos were taken 12 hours later at night and in a different place. Mayo left Los Pavos on the evening of March 15 at the same place that he entered; this time he passed by two more camera stations. The photo record also showed that he followed a different route to leave Los Pavos.

So, this is a good example of the use of camera traps to monitor the activity of wild animals such as jaguars. We have found other cases like this – with the jaguars “Perrito” and “Cholla” two months ago. However in this case, Mayo was photographed more often in a shorter period of time.

On the other hand, we did not have photos of other jaguars this time. Maybe the jaguars are out of the area covered by the cameras installed on the reserve. We are worried about Perrito, since we don’t know where he is… Maybe Perrito is still looking for Cholla and “Yuri,” but while he is in love, Mayo is using their territory and perhaps Mayo will soon become the dominant male of Northern Jaguar Reserve.

Now, let us tell you a little about our visits this month. In the middle of March, the Telemax team (a Sonoran TV channel) stayed with us at the reserve to make a report of the conservation activities that we do monthly. They also talked about the importance of the reserve to protect the jaguar and other endangered species and how these species could be affected by the construction of the border wall between Mexico and the U.S. This is a great opportunity for Sonoran people to know more about the reserve, and we think this is also a great opportunity to share with other people the importance of jaguar conservation.

At the end of the month, we received a visit from the president of the Shared Earth Foundation. She and her foundation are important partners for the reserve. In company of NJP board members Rick Williams and Carlos Lopez, ornithologist Aaron Flesh, and other friends, we visited many beautiful parts of the reserve and presented a little of the biological work that we do. We hope we were able to share with her part of the beauty of reserve and jaguars in this part of the world.

Furthermore, we met with NJP president Diana Hadley, who was traveling with one of NJP’s major supporters, at La Ventana. They brought a solar-powered refrigerator that was purchased with funds raised by individual NJP supporters, as well as a car jack, portable stove, portable sleeping cots, and a couple of Therm-a-rests. Thank you for these in-kind contributions! This makes our field work more comfortable. Please continue supporting the Northern Jaguar Project.

Well, that is all for this month; we hope next month to share more adventures with you and to find Perrito photos because we miss him.

Best regards,

– Carmina & Miguel

Our jaguar guardians, Carmina Gutiérrez and Miguel Gómez Ramírez, have worked at the Northern Jaguar Reserve since October 2008. As the reserve’s resident biologists, Carmina and Miguel patrol lands to keep out poachers, sustain ongoing management of the reserve, maintain a network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of reserve lands and waters.

Hi again!

Here we are again, telling you about our monthly activities at the Northern Jaguar Reserve. Starting with the jaguar news: This month we got four pictures from two different jaguars. One of these was an unnamed jaguar that first appeared in February 2009 at Los Pavos. Now with your suggestions, we decided to name it “Chasah,” which means “to seek refuge” in Hebrew. It is a great name for a jaguar because they have been persecuted by humans for many years and now they find a refuge at the reserve. The second jaguar is a new record, and we named this one “Balam.” This is a name that also came to us as a suggestion from our supporters, and it means “jaguar” in the Mayan language.

We are happy because our web-trapping design and paired cameras seem to be working well. We are getting great jaguar pictures (with both side views) at different points on the reserve, and we are retrieving more scientific data about northern jaguars. Thanks to your support, we know more and more about these beautiful animals.

We have other interesting news. We recently had many pictures of a very rare kind of bobcat. This bobcat is special because if you see it, you could think that it is an ocelot, but if look closely at the detail, it is a bobcat! This kind of cat is present in the U.S. and is very rare in Mexico, therefore we think it is a male looking for a new range and moving further south than normal. We hope to get more pictures of this bobcat. We named it “Pochiviz.” This name is a mixture of “Gato Pochi,” the local name for bobcat, and “Galaviz,” the local name for ocelot.

Finally, we want to tell you about our visits to three neighboring ranches that are new to us: Cajón Babizoso, Tinaja Ahogadora, and Las Tezotas. The first two ranches are potential acquisitions for reserve expansion. Both of these ranches are really beautiful. The riparian vegetation at Cajón Babizoso is amazing; when we were walking along its streams, we found many plants that we never thought could be in this area. We think that the purchase of this ranch will give the reserve not only more protection for jaguars but many different habitats and maybe new faunal records. Tinaja Ahogadora has pretty nice oak woodlands in the mountains and a lot of (but not less beautiful) thornscrub similar to many parts of the reserve.

The other place that we visited was Rancho Las Tezotas. This ranch is very special because it is a ranch where the owner didn’t used to like jaguars. He was against the Feline Photo Project in the beginning, but he has accepted the program now. More importantly, he now agrees with jaguar conservation and jaguar coexistence. We will put some cameras on his ranch next month. We think this is a great opportunity for other ranchers who are against this program to see the benefits of wildlife conservation. Good luck to Mr. Sergio Amaya, and we hope to soon get a jaguar picture on his ranch.

This is all we have to share with you about our work for now. We hope to continue telling about our work and adventures at the reserve soon.

Best regards,

– Carmina & Miguel

Our jaguar guardians, Carmina Gutiérrez and Miguel Gómez Ramírez, have worked at the Northern Jaguar Reserve since October 2008. As the reserve’s resident biologists, Carmina and Miguel patrol lands to keep out poachers, sustain ongoing management of the reserve, maintain a network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of reserve lands and waters.

*Field staff voted for the names Balam and Chasah out of the choices submitted by NJP supporters. Thanks to Patricia Tricorache and Judy Tipton for contributing these selections!

All three photos: The bobcat Pochiviz

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! We are very happy because we have the opportunity once again to tell you about the good results from the efforts that we are undertaking to preserve the jaguar in this region of North America. Like each month, we had a lot of work and, of course, many adventures on the Northern Jaguar Reserve.

We finished 2009 in a good way, and we started the new year even better! After nearly three months without a picture of a jaguar, this time we got five photos of jaguars on the Northern Jaguar Reserve. The Feline Photo Project obtained three more jaguar photos on the neighboring ranches.

Our most famous jaguar, the male nicknamed “Perrito,” was photographed once again at the boundary where Los Pavos and Dubaral meet. He has been seen several times in this area. On the night of December 6, a motion-triggered camera that we installed just six hours earlier took a photograph of Perrito! Almost a month later, he was photographed on two consecutive days: first at Dubaral toward the northern end of the reserve; the next day at Rancho El Carricito, the neighboring ranch owned by our friend Dolores “La Lola” Lopez. This was good news for La Lola because she lost her burros to predation last year and will now be rewarded for the jaguar picture.

In the middle of December, the female jaguar named “Cholla” was photographed twice at Dubaral. Cholla was seen again by our cameras in late December at El Carricito, which means more rewards for La Lola! (Cholla is the jaguar recorded last year dragging a javelina she killed.) In the recent photos, you can see that she has a big tummy. Is Cholla pregnant right now? If so, maybe she is pregnant by Perrito.

Does Perrito leave his territory neglected while he is out courting Cholla? Because another adult male jaguar named “Mayo,” photographed at Los Pavos on December 27, is an individual that has not been seen before. Finally, another jaguar was photographed at the Los Alisos ranch, a neighboring ranch owned by Ricardo Vázquez. This was “Cecilio,” the same jaguar photographed here in February 2009. Is Cecilio looking for a female too?

We are expecting to see Cholla’s kittens, and you? If you pay attention to the pictures of Perrito and Mayo, you will see that they are marking their territories. They are looking for females, and we all know that Cholla, Corazón, and Yuri are around. So at any moment if we have a little bit of luck, we will see pictures of cubs.

Thanks to your support, we have installed more and more cameras in remote and inaccessible sites on the reserve according to our web array design. We are expecting to capture on film these little speckled cats, the hope of the northern jaguar population. But, if you want to know more of what is happening with the jaguars at the reserve, you will have to wait until our next blog.

In other news, Alicia Decina of Wild Horizons Ltd. visited us for a week early this year. (Our friend and NJP board member Rick Williams was also with us.) Alicia and her team will film the jaguars in the wild at the reserve this spring, and we showed her several potential sites for filming. We wish the people of Wild Horizons luck, and both the jaguars and us will be awaiting their visit.

In the early days of January, we were at the reserve with David Yetman and his team from the Arizona Public Media television program “The Desert Speaks.” It was a pleasure for us to show them a little bit of the reserve, as well as the wildlife conservation work that we do. Most importantly, through David’s program, we can share with others the good fortune that few people have – the opportunity of walking on the trail of the northern jaguar.

We have not finished with our visitors, and another friend came to the reserve this month. Stephen “Chip” Ratley first came to the reserve last year to conduct a water quality analysis. This time, he trained us in these techniques so that now we are capable to do the monthly water quality monitoring at the reserve and some places nearby that are important for overall ecosystem welfare. However, we need your support to buy some reagents and cell glasses for the spectrophotometer that we use for water analysis. So far, the test results of water quality have been good; according to Chip, most of the water from the reserve has little or no pollution.

Talking about water… Wow! We were very surprised by the amount of rainfall that accompanied winter storms. Some parts of the dirt roads that lead to the reserve, and the main road of the reserve, were affected by rock landslides and soil erosion caused by rainfall. The main reserve road was repaired just a few weeks ago by a rented bulldozer. Now, the trail is pretty much as usual. We believe that some preventive work, such as drainage systems and barriers to prevent erosion, are necessary to maintain the road.

One time we drove from La Ventana to Babisal, and we suddenly found a huge rock on one side of the road – a rock that possibly weighed half a ton or maybe more. On the other side was a cliff. When we got out of the car, we saw the rock up close and first thought, “What the heck?! This is the end of the road for today!” But our desire to move forward filled us with determination and strength, and we got the tools (a metal bar and a hammer). We had to break up the rock for a couple of hours. It was madness! Finally, we removed several pieces from one side of the rock, and the vehicle just fit past. That night, we went to bed very exhausted.

Another day, we returned from the reserve to the town of Sahuaripa in the evening. We were almost home when our fears came true: The Sahuaripa River was swollen due to the rains, and there was no passage. We were about one mile from town, and we couldn’t cross the river! We spent the night hoping that the river’s water level would go down by the morning. Luckily we brought our sleeping bags because it was very cold! Finally, the next day we reached Sahuaripa, and now we are here, telling you about our adventures.

Best regards,

– Carmina & Miguel

Our jaguar guardians, Carmina Gutiérrez and Miguel Gómez Ramírez, have worked at the Northern Jaguar Reserve since October 2008. As the reserve’s resident biologists, Carmina and Miguel patrol lands to keep out poachers, sustain ongoing management of the reserve, maintain a network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of reserve lands and waters.

Top photo: Cholla at Dubaral; next two: Perrito at Dubaral plus January guests with the guardians; bottom two: the reserve road and driving into town

Hi Friends!

Unfortunately, this was another month where we did not get any photos of jaguars, which makes us feel very sad. We are trying to understand what is happening, and we are trying to identify the best places to install the camera traps in order to obtain more pictures and scientific data of these beautiful animals. However, we do have some good news: We had photos of mountain lions, bobcats, and ocelots. There were also pictures of other species such as rabbits, hares, deer, and skunks.

These months without pictures of jaguars have served for us as a review of the sites that we considered the best for detecting jaguars, and now they don’t seem as good as we thought. Thanks to your support, NJP has increased the number of cameras. We are exploring new sites while we complete the web array design on the Northern Jaguar Reserve and surrounding ranches that we proposed months ago and continue with the formal analysis of the data. As we have more cameras and are now putting all the points in pairs, and as we once again begin to photograph jaguars, we expect to have two-sided pictures, thus improving the identification of individual jaguars.

The new year that is beginning fills us with hope and encouragement regarding jaguar conservation. We hope to keep getting more and more data that enable us to better understand the jaguar behavior and to continue disseminating our results. We took the first step last month in Denver and Tucson, and we hope to reach more people like you in the year ahead – people who are committed to the conservation of this magnificent species.

Finally, we want to wish you a happy start to the year. We hope that all of your objectives are met, and we want to thank you for your valuable support for the study and conservation of jaguars and the wildlife found at the Northern Jaguar Reserve.

Best regards,

– Carmina & Miguel

Our jaguar guardians, Carmina Gutiérrez and Miguel Gómez Ramírez, have worked at the Northern Jaguar Reserve since October 2008. As the reserve’s resident biologists, Carmina and Miguel patrol lands to keep out poachers, sustain ongoing management of the reserve, maintain a network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of reserve lands and waters.

This year, the Northern Jaguar Project’s end-of-year report and funding appeal has a different author. Our board president, Diana Hadley, requested that I write this year’s letter, as NJP’s science coordinator, because the NJP board has been so impressed with the new level of scientific work produced by our current Jaguar Guardians. This funding appeal, however, is not exclusively for biological research. Contributions from our supporters have been crucially important to all aspects of jaguar conservation in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. After six years, your faith in us and dedicated financial support for NJP and our Mexican partner Naturalia have let our project truly blossom.

Our two Jaguar Guardians, Carmina Gutiérrez and Miguel Gómez, and our Feline Photo Project field technician, Tania Gutiérrez, have done extraordinary work. These intrepid young biologists are true researchers and exceptionally hard workers. They have implemented a fully efficient camera array and have analyzed previously collected data for presentations at professional meetings. In addition, they patrol the reserve to keep out poachers, maintain the network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of the reserve’s lands and waters. Ultimately their wonderful work will lead to the realization of a true sanctuary for wildlife on the Northern Jaguar Reserve.

Here are a few highlights from 2009, not just for jaguars, but for the many species that receive protection under the jaguar’s umbrella.

• Jaguar documentation has been exceptional. Through motion-triggered photography, we recorded eight individual jaguars – three of them females – on the reserve and surrounding ranches. These females are the great hope for a continuing viable population, and their kittens may eventually wander into Arizona and New Mexico. “Cholla,” a female whose name was selected by NJP supporters, was first photographed in May. She was photographed again in August, dragging a javelina kill. “Corazón,” named for a unique heart-shaped spot on her left side, grew up on the reserve. Initially photographed as a pre-teen in 2006, Corazón re-appeared in July in front of one of our cameras as a healthy adult. The third female, “Yuri,” named for the daughter of our neighbor Diego Ezrré, was first photographed in July 2008, and she now frequents a territory near the southern end of the reserve.

Since the reserve was established in 2003 with the purchase of Rancho Los Pavos (10,000 acres) and expanded in 2008 with the purchase of Rancho Zetasora (35,000 acres), NJP and Naturalia have increased the total protected area to include 125 square miles, through cooperation with nine neighboring ranchers who have agreed not to harm carnivores on their properties. Most important, we now have a control area to determine the pace of jaguar recovery following the removal of most of the cattle from the reserve. Contrary to the expectations of some of our neighbors, who feared that removing cattle from the reserve would propel hungry jaguars onto their ranches, analysis of long-term monitoring data indicates the contrary. We now know that Rancho Los Pavos, where cattle were removed six years ago, has the largest number of jaguar records. It appears that instead of leaving Los Pavos in pursuit of livestock, jaguars have stayed to hunt what we believe to be an increasing population of deer and javelina. This is great news, especially for our neighboring ranchers.

• Several milestones for our jaguar conservation programs: NJP’s binational collaboration with Naturalia has resulted in the longest period of jaguar observation at any single locale in Mexico. On an international level, our jaguar research and guardianship program is the third longest, with longer-term programs conducted only in Brazil and Belize. Last month, our unique collaboration with ranchers received significant recognition at Wild9, the World Wilderness Congress, in Merida, Mexico. This past summer, one of the reserve’s cooperating rancher/neighbors, Diego Ezrré, won the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund’s esteemed Conservation Hero award. Because we employ and celebrate citizen-science along with professional research, the project has brought envy and praise from a diverse audience.

• Our botanical inventory, conducted this fall by pre-eminent botanists and naturalists Dr. Tom Van Devender and Ana Lilia Reina, now includes 550 plants, adding significantly to previous floral surveys. As we have learned, nearly every scientist familiar with northern Mexico finds new and noteworthy discoveries on the reserve. For plants, these include four species with Mexican federal protection, 13 species that are northern range extensions from tropical deciduous forests to the south, and two species that are the southernmost records. As part of our pragmatic comparison of cattle-free and cattle-occupied jaguar habitat, we are now in a better position to determine the rate of vegetative – as well as wildlife – recovery on the reserve.

• Our recently completed satellite photo atlas of the reserve allows us to map vegetative communities along with many other natural features of the reserve, including jaguar prey species, degraded areas in need of rehabilitation, water sources, etc. The mapping will likely contribute to the issuing of a Mexican presidential decree for long-term protection of the reserve.

• Our first water quality study gave the Río Aros a clean bill of health, which is great news for the Neotropical river otters and the five species of native fish on the reserve. These results will help to establish a baseline to determine if any future mining operations upstream are impacting the reserve. Our jaguar guardians will be trained to take quarterly water samples, and we will also include the Río Yaqui in our observations next year.

• Our bird surveys overseen by top ornithologist Aaron Flesch once again found new species for the region and set new records. White-eared hummingbird, Buff-breasted flycatcher, Greater pewee, Slate-throated redstart, Brewer’s sparrow, Red-napped sapsucker, Northern parula, and the first records of Brown-backed solitaire were added to our list, which now includes more than 160 species. We hope to be the first observers in the subtropical/temperate transition to record the arrival and departure dates of migratory birds – the baseline needed to know what climate change means to our avian friends.

• We are continuing with reserve expansion. We have signed letters of intent to purchase Cajón Babizoso and Tinaja Ahogadora, two ranches west of the reserve that comprise an additional 7,000 acres. Scientific experts expect to find some important differences in the bird and plant species detected due to the west-facing orientation of the Sierra Zetasora. Both properties were prioritized for purchase for their key ecological features, frontage on the Río Yaqui, the current owners’ hostility toward carnivores, and the high likelihood of jaguar occurrence. These ranches provide a link to the area that hunters say was the heart of the northern jaguar population during the 1930s.

These are our funding requests to you.
Our guardians/researchers, Carmina and Miguel, spend increasing amounts of time on the reserve, where they suffer in the summer from 115-degree temperatures and vicious insect bites, work at the La Ventana research station without electric light or heat in the winter, eat unrefrigerated food that frequently goes bad, bounce over rutted dirt roads, get stuck in the mud, and battle old tires and bad springs. To make their lives a bit easier and more comfortable, we need donations for a solar-powered refrigerator, coolers, camp beds and mattresses, truck tools, heavy duty jacks, new tires, a new laptop battery, a video camera, binoculars, and various field guides. Since they are completely isolated in rugged country, NJP wants them to have a cellular phone, radio communications, and a second GPS unit. We also need solar electrical systems to power weather stations at La Ventana and at other former ranch camps on the reserve at Los Pavos and Babisal. Los Pavos also needs a clean water system. And the road into the reserve will have to be graded. The ranches we will soon acquire are mostly roadless, with access by boat across the river. Our first practical request is for purchase of horses and mules for transportation. In addition to funding these creature comforts, we need to fund ongoing salaries for the jaguar guardians. Our reserve goal is $10,000 for capital and infrastructure improvements, with an additional $40,000 to operate the Jaguar Guardian program for one year.

Our Feline Photo Project, which rewards ranchers for camera-trap photos of felines in exchange for an agreement on their part not to kill predators, has even more practical needs: sleeping bags, camping tent, portable stove, dishes and flatware, ice chests, truck tools, strong plastic boxes, shovel and machete, pruning shears, gloves, voltmeter, and multi-card reader. Our Feline Photo Project goal is to raise $12,000 for supplies and to replenish our annual Feline Photo Project award fund.

We know it’s been a tough year financially, and we appreciate however much you are able to share with us. Donations go directly to these projects. We have only one part-time staff person and an extremely small overhead. Our action-oriented board works for free. Please continue to explore our website, www.northernjaguarproject.org, for the latest photos and natural history news or to make a donation online.

Thanks again for your support,

Peter Warshall, Ph.D.

P.S. We have once again received a generous challenge grant from our friends at the Earth Friends Wildlife Foundation to raise the above-mentioned $62,000. That means every dollar you donate will be matched by these valued conservation partners!

Broad-billed hummingbird photo by Jim Rorabaugh

Dear friends,

As with each month, we reviewed all of the cameras on the reserve and put out new cameras that will serve to complete our web design; we are placing more and more cameras in the field each time. With respect to felids, this month we had some very nice photographs of ocelots, bobcats, and mountain lions. Unfortunately we did not find any jaguar photos. We saw some jaguar tracks in a pond, but there was not a camera nearby. We hope to find more jaguar pictures coinciding with all of the new cameras we continue placing in the field to follow the web camera design. This is the first time all of the camera stations will be paired, so we hope we will finally have both sides of jaguars and be able to identify all of them in order to continue our analysis about jaguar populations.

This month was not only about field work; this time we had very different work since it was also the first time we visited the United States. We had the great opportunity to go to one very interesting meeting, the 2009 Carnivore Conference in Denver, Colorado, organized by Defenders of Wildlife. While there, we presented our results from the 10-year analysis that we did earlier this fall. That experience allowed us to meet different people, all of them really nice persons and very interested in jaguar conservation. So for a few days, we forgot all political frontiers and talked about the importance of conserving carnivore populations throughout the world. And one great thing besides the conference is that we were met with lots of snow; it was an excellent part of the trip that we will never forget.

After the Carnivore meeting, we went to Tucson to meet some donors and talk with them about our work and adventures on the reserve. At first, we were very nervous, but they were very nice and patient with our English – so we felt like we were at home, and we had a great night with them.

Finally, we really want to say thank you to all of the donors that always help us to continue jaguar monitoring and conservation and that are helping us to improve the infrastructure in order to make our days at the reserve safer and more comfortable.

Best regards,

– Carmina & Miguel

Our jaguar guardians, Carmina Gutiérrez and Miguel Gómez Ramírez, have worked at the Northern Jaguar Reserve since October 2008. As the reserve’s resident biologists, Carmina and Miguel patrol lands to keep out poachers, sustain ongoing management of the reserve, maintain a network of motion-triggered cameras, and inventory the ecological health of reserve lands and waters.