Jaguars Moving Back Into U.S.

Feb. 21 -- It took 4 ½ years to get it, but the rare photo Jack Childs captured near the border between Arizona and Mexico was well worth the wait. His automatic, motion-sensing cameras snapped hundreds of photos of virtually everything that moves in the deserts of the Southwest, but in January he finally got his cat.

There, slinking across the desert in the dark of night, was a wild jaguar, one of the most powerful animals in the world, and a rare visitor to the United States.

"Everybody said I'd never get it," says Childs, a retired land surveyor turned wildlife researcher.

The picture of the jaguar was precisely what Childs was after, because scientists believe there is a chance that the exotic cats might be attempting to "recolonize" the southern part of the United States. They were never there in great abundance, but jaguars used to roam across southern Arizona, New Mexico and even Southern California and Texas, according to Howard Quigley, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Global Carnivore Program, which is funding Childs' photographic efforts.

Childs has been using 10 cameras at different sites in southern Arizona, and he will soon expand that number to 16. But just like the princess who had to kiss a lot of ugly frogs before finding her prince, Childs wound up with boxes full of bad photos before he got the one he was after.

"We've got pictures of everything that lives in this country," he says. "Wild pigs, mountain lions, black bears, bobcats, a gray fox, and even illegal immigrants, dope smugglers and backpackers." So far, he says, none of the humans captured on film have swiped any of his gear.

‘A Mystical Experience’

Childs' jaguar was the first photographed in North America in about six years. There were two other confirmed sightings in 1996, both by hunters who were looking for mountain lions.

One of those hunters was Childs.

"I was lion hunting with my hounds," says Childs. "I thought I was chasing a mountain lion, and it turned out to be a jaguar."