454
Despite infrequent spottings, the United States’ last remaining jaguar is thought to call the tall peaks of southern Arizona’s Chiricahua Mountains home.
“Sombra” (Spanish for “shade”), as the male cat is known to wildlife researchers, wanders around hunting for food and searching for a mate – which, without the Northern Jaguar Project, might presently elude him.
The Tucson-based nonprofit remains mission-driven to preserve and recover the world’s northernmost population of the panthera onca (also called tigre americano) by restoring its natural habitats in hopes of more cats wandering north from Sonora, Mexico, where a small population of these endangered cats survives.
– Hannah Van Sickle, The Arizona 100