Hidden Cameras in Arizona Just Spotted a Rare Predator That Was Once Believed to Be Endangered
Photographer Jason Miller (@jasonmilleroutdoors) spent five long years setting up trail cameras in the lush coniferous forest in southern Arizona next to the Mexican border. Over the years, the hidden trail cameras captured stunning sights of wilderness including the rare Arizona ocelots, the majestic desert big horns, cutesy bobcats, quails, pronghorn antelopes, feral hogs, bear, mountain lions, coachwhip snake, and even a thirsty javelina. But never did he think, in his wildest dreams, that one day his cameras would catch an animal, which he described to the Los Angeles Times, as the “holy grail of big cats.”
"That meant everything to me," Miller told the outlet. "I've been running cameras for just over five years in Southern Arizona and in the deserts hoping maybe one day I'd find a jaguar. It finally happened," he added. On December 30th, 2023, Miller was hiking in the montane forests of the Huachuca Mountains, checking the trail cameras he had punctuated throughout the terrain. He noticed that one of the cameras, attached to a tree, had recorded a majestic jaguar roaming in the forested woodland at around 8:30 pm on December 20th. This was the first time this jaguar was ever photographed or filmed, as the Arizona Game & Fish Department (AZGFD) confirmed.
“Unbelievable, here it is,” Miller exclaimed in the voiceover of footage he shared on YouTube of the rare jaguar. The black-and-white footage shows this jaguar roaming in woodland and nibbling on bits and pieces scattered around with its long neck filled with black spots and rosettes. The photographer named the magnificent creature “Cochise” after the Arizona town of the same name. “I was just over the moon about getting a jaguar,” Miller later told KGUN 9. “But for it to be a brand new one, that no one has ever gotten on camera before in Arizona, that’s mind-blowing. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t believe it... It’s a needle in a haystack," he added.
Mark Hart, AZGFD’s public information officer told the LA Times, that this jaguar was the eighth individual jaguar spotted in the wild in the United States since the 1990s. “On average historically, there are three to five jaguars in this state every 10 years, for the past 100 years,” he explained. According to the outlet, some of the equally fascinating juvenile jaguars captured previously in Arizona included “El Jefe” who was spotted in Tucson in 2022, and the one named Sombra, spotted in Chiricahua Mountains later that year.
Hart reflected that one theory of these jaguar sightings is that these wild cats cross the Mexican border after being forced to leave by other males in breeding populations in Sonora, a Mexican state. "They've got everything they need here in terms of food and space, just not females, so they eventually leave," he said. However, he revealed that nearly all the jaguars discovered in these sightings were males. “So far, every recent jaguar sighting has been a male,” he said and added, “The last documented female in the wild goes back to the ’40s.”
Given the endangered nature of jaguars, these sightings might seem thrilling and rare, but The Guardian reports that these wild jungle cats once roamed throughout the American southwest, mainly during the 1960s. Over the years, climate change triggered habitat loss, making it harder for these predators to hunt and mate. As a result, they began crossing the wildlife corridors and moving away from where they were typically found. But thanks to Miller's photography equipment, these sightings of predatory beasts and critters are offering hope.