TUCSON, AZ — Yo’oko, a jaguar that roamed the Huachuca Mountains in southern Arizona an one of only two of his species known to be living in the wild in the United States, has been found dead, the Center for Biological Diversity said, calling the cat’s death a tragedy. The circumstances of Yo’oko’s death are unknown.
“This tragedy is piercing,” Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate for Tucson-based nonprofit said in a statement. “It highlights the urgency to protect jaguar habitat on both sides of the border and ensure these rare, beautiful cats have safe places to live.”
Students at Hiaki High School in Tucson named the jaguar Yo’oko, a Yaqui word that translates to “jaguar warrior,” last year after the cat showed up regularly in 2016 and 2017 on trail cameras monitored by wildlife biologists and volunteers.
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Jaguars’ golden coats are marked with dark, distinctive rosettes, each with a unique pattern that enables the identification of specific individuals. Officials with the Center for Biological Diversity said the photo of the dead animal’s pelt, sent to the nonprofit by the Tucson-based Northern Jaguar Project, matches Yo’oko’s markings.
The elusive carnivore may have been killed by a mountain lion hunter, the Arizona Daily Star reported. Local rancher Carlos Robles Elias told the newspaper that he heard from a friend that a jaguar had been trapped and killed six months ago near Sonora near the U.S. border. The cats often wander into the U.S. from Mexico.
“We must continue working to overcome the cultural prejudice that jaguars are somehow enemies of people,” Serraglio said in the statement. “Indigenous people of the Americas have revered jaguars as majestic, powerful spirits of the wild for thousands of years. Whoever killed Yo’oko could learn a lot from them.”
U.S. jaguars are part of a small, vulnerable population concentrated south of the Arizona border in Sonora, Mexico.
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Yo’oko is one of three jaguars detected in the U.S. in the past three years. U.S. jaguars are part of a small, vulnerable population concentrated south of the Arizona border in Sonora, Mexico.
“The presence of jaguars in our mountains tells us that they are still whole and still wild,” Serraglio said. “The thought of having to explain to those kids at Hiaki High School that somebody killed their favorite jaguar really just breaks my heart.”
The students at the school, which offers studies in Yaqui culture and language, chose the name as a nod to the big cat’s revered place in cross-border indigenous cultures in the Southwest.
“We take great pride in our native heritage at Hiaki High. We are the Warriors. We’re proud to have our language, our word for jaguar, be represented and attached to such an incredible cat,” Tatiana Martinez, a student at Hiaki High when the name was chosen, told the Center for Biological Diversity. “Yo’oko has family in Mexico, just like we do.”
The Pascua Yaqui Tribe is a group of indigenous peoples that traditionally roamed throughout northern Mexico and the American Southwest. The Pascua Yaqui Reservation gained official recognition by the U.S. federal government in 1978 and is home to approximately 3,300 people. Their sacred Yaqui Deer Dance is a highly respected native ceremony that has remained virtually unchanged for centuries.
The third-largest cat in the world after lions and tigers, jaguars once were plentiful throughout the American Southwest. They roamed widely, from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon to the mountains in southern California to as far east as Louisiana.
They have become exceedingly rare, virtually disappearing from their range over the past 150 years due to habitat loss and historic government predator control programs intended to protect the wildlife industry.
Jaguars have been protected outside the United States since 1973 under the Endangered Species Act. The protection was extended to the species in the United States in 1997, a year after their presence was confirmed.
Photo courtesy of the Center for Biological Diversity