New survey credited for showing latest increase
The annual interagency survey of the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel showed an increase in the latest po
Jaguars could roam across wider areas of the United States than once thought, a new study has found, potentially raising the chances of survival for the endangered cat.
The study, published in conservation journal Oryx on Tuesday, identified a swath of land the size of South Carolina in parts of Arizona and western New Mexico that could potentially support more than 150 jaguars in the future. Since 1996, seven jaguars, all males, have been documented in the U.S.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s jaguar recovery plan, published in April 2019, identified a narrow strip of habitat in the Arizona and New Mexico borderlands that the agency determined could support just six jaguars. The service placed the onus of conservation primarily on Mexico and countries in Central and South America because the majority of existing populations remain south of the border.
Fight is on to save critically endangered red squirrel in Arizona tucsonsentinel.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tucsonsentinel.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A Mt. Graham red squirrel matriarch. (Photo by Robin Silver)
TUCSON, Ariz. (CN) Encroaching development and wildfires exacerbated by climate change have conspired to leave a squirrel species unique to a tiny niche of Arizona forest teetering near extinction.
Mt. Graham, a 10,000-foot peak in the Pinaleño Mountains, is home to a University of Arizona observatory, a telescope owned by the Vatican, an abandoned church camp, and 14 privately owned summer cabins all of which threaten the Mt. Graham red squirrel.
The sub-species, thought to be extinct by the 1950s but rediscovered in the 1970s, was added to the Endangered Species List in 1987. It has been squeezed in recent years by competing squirrels, wildfires, and firefighting efforts including prescribed burns and the cutting of fire breaks which destroy the squirrels’ “middens” or food caches.