Jaguars are not moving into the Gila Wilderness

Feb. 4—Jaguars are not coming to the Gila Wilderness anytime soon.

An environmental group's petition to reintroduce jaguars to the Gila National Forest in southern New Mexico has been rejected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Center for Biological Diversity is still petitioning to expand the critical habitat of the jaguar.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not believe reintroducing jaguars to the Gila would further the recovery of the species, according to the rejection letter.

"Jaguars, plain and simple, they belong here," said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. "They're a pretty important part of the web of life in the canyons and mountains of Arizona, New Mexico, in some places even to this day."

Apex predators like jaguars can help prevent overgrazing by herbivores that degrade vegetation and disrupt soil health, McSpadden said, pointing to the successful reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone. Jaguars also have cultural significance in Indigenous communities in New Mexico, Arizona, California and Texas.

Establishing jaguars at the extreme northern end of their range could be important to the species' long-term survival as climate change causes higher temperatures and dryer environments, McSpadden said.

The Gila Wilderness could be a good location for reintroduction, according to McSpadden, because it is a much larger mountain range than the Sky Islands in Arizona, where some jaguars are living. It could hold a larger breeding population and bolster the species' genetic diversity.

The rejection letter points to the possible negative effects of removing individual jaguars from their current locations to establish an experimental colony in New Mexico. The Fish and Wildlife letter cites a population viability analysis that suggests jaguars in Sonora, Mexico, could be at risk of population decline if as few as five per year are relocated. The captive jaguar population is also not sufficient to grow an experimental colony to the target size of 120, according to the letter.

The Fish and Wildlife letter also says there have been no breeding jaguars in New Mexico and notes that the jaguars that have been spotted in New Mexico appear to be males at the edge of their habitat range. Male jaguars wander more broadly than females.

"This new denial is kind of a heartbreaking example of a continued failure to take these proactive steps to recover jaguar populations to their native range," McSpadden said.

The rejection letter says the agency is committed to jaguar conservation and plans to continue leading and participating in jaguar conservation initiatives.