Cats in the Cradle of Conservation

Bart van Dorp/Creative Commons

"If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve the man, but it would deteriorate the cat." — Mark Twain

Cats have long captivated the human imagination, which explains not only their popularity as pets but also the perennial appeal of calendars featuring fluffy kittens and the incessant social media posts of felines doing funny things.

JAGUAR

It’s a considerably more momentous occasion, however, when a wildlife trail camera captures the grainy image of a jaguar (Panthera onca) skulking through the rugged mountains of southern Arizona. When first listed as endangered in 1972, jaguars were believed to have been extirpated from the U.S. But in 1996, on two separate occasions, mountain lion hunting dogs treed a jaguar and their respective owners snapped photos for subsequent verification.

“It was very exciting news and it triggered a … study during which one of the lion hunters set up cameras throughout parts of southern Arizona,” says Melanie Culver, a U.S. Geological Survey geneticist and assistant biology professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources. “They also found two jaguars during the study.” Culver and her academic colleagues initiated another, more extensive study in 2012, monitoring one jaguar since November of that year.

The largest, most powerful feline in the Western Hemisphere and certainly king of its domain, the jaguar ranges from southwestern Arizona and Mexico, across much of Central America, and into South America. But the apex predator has witnessed its kingdom significantly reduced as a result of wide-scale habitat destruction – particularly deforestation – and hunting, which persists illegally for trade purposes in many parts of its range. In addition to illegal trade, these animals are also killed because they are seen as a threat to livestock.

At the northwestern most portion of the species’ range, “jaguar recovery will be dependent on the stabilization and growth of the two core populations, and the maintenance of the movement corridor between them,” says Dr. Howard Quigley, co-leader of the bi-national Jaguar Recovery Team and Executive Director of the non-profit organization Panthera's Jaguar Program. “This will be dependent on reducing mortality factors, reducing the threats to jaguar survival.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and the Jaguar Recovery Team, which includes biologists in the U.S. and Mexico, are developing a draft recovery plan that will be available for public comment this year. Part of this plan will include strategies to improve habitat connectivity throughout the cat’s range. To this end, the recovery team oversees many efforts, including developing road crossing design recommendations in the northwestern part of the jaguar’s range to facilitate safe movement across roadways. Additionally, last year, federal wildlife officials designated nearly 1,200 square miles (3,110 square kilometers) along the U.S.-Mexico border, including parts of Arizona and New Mexico, as habitat essential for jaguar conservation.

OCELOT

It was serendipitous that trail cameras in Arizona also caught images of a subspecies of ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), a wild cat that weighs between 15 and 30 pounds and resembles a small leopard. The species once roamed from Texas and Louisiana up into Arkansas, south through Mexico, and deep into Central and South America. Outside the few sightings of the subspecies in southern Arizona, today in the U.S., there are just three small breeding populations of ocelot, all in South Texas, totaling fewer than 100 cats.

Photo credit: © Mary Jo Bogatto

Not far from where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge is a sanctuary of more than 97,000 acres (31,970 hectares) of thornsrub, freshwater wetlands, coastal prairies, mudflats, and beaches. Here, biologists are working on behalf of the ocelot.

“We have 13 known cats here on the refuge and there are 34 more in the region directly around us,” says refuge biologist Hilary Swarts.

The cats contend with three current threats: habitat loss and fragmentation due to urbanization, agriculture, and oil and gas activity; lack of genetic diversity due to the limited population and lack of habitat connectivity; and road mortality, which accounts for some 40 percent of ocelot deaths.

“As far as addressing genetic diversity issues, we’re exploring the possibility of translocating cats, specifically moving breeding females from other populations in Texas or from the ocelot population in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, about six hours south of the border,” says Swarts. “Genetic diversity is extremely important in population-level disease resistance as well as in reducing the possibility of inbreeding depression, which can suppress population growth.”

In the meantime, the refuge is focused on improving and expanding existing ocelot habitat. Whenever possible, the refuge acquires lands or encourages partners to develop conservation easements to conduct habitat restoration. But the Tamapaulin thornscrub in which the cat thrives can take time – between 20 and 30 years – to mature. To expedite habitat restoration, refuge biologist Jonathan Moczygemba has partnered with the University of Texas at Brownsville to explore the use of tree tubes, herbivore exclosures, and the removal of non-native grass species that compete for water and soil nutrients.

“Speeding the process will be huge,” says Moczygemba. “It may cost more up front, but the returns will be worthwhile. The ocelot is an umbrella species for the habitat it prefers. In restoring habitat for the ocelot, we’re also improving conditions for species such as javelina, chachalaca, and the state-endangered Texas tortoise and indigo snake, and an immense number of bird species.”

However, like the thornscrub, ocelot populations themselves take time to reestablish. Unlike housecats, which can produce litters of four to six kittens several times each year, ocelots typically only produce one kitten – occasionally two – every one and a half to two years. Ocelot offspring are highly dependent on their mothers and may stay with them for up to two years before establishing a separate home range.

“It’s a long process,” says Swarts. “But the ocelots are making babies. We just have to help keep them alive.”

That’s why Swarts and her colleagues are pleased that the Texas Department of Transportation has committed to building 12 wildlife crossings that will provide safe passage beneath two major highways that border the refuge. Fencing between crossings will help keep cats off busy roadways and funnel them towards the crossings.

“This will definitely help reduce road mortalities and should be a crucial turning point in ocelot population recovery,” says Swarts.

Photo credit: Rodney Cammauf/NPS

FLORIDA PANTHER

On the other side of the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi), an endangered subspecies of cougar that can grow to 160 pounds, represents a remarkable success story in the making. Historically, the cat ranged throughout Florida and other states along the Gulf Coast and in the Southeast. Primarily because of urbanization and agricultural development, that range was reduced to just one percent. By the 1970s, there were an estimated 20 individual cats remaining in the wild, all in South Florida.

“Now we have perhaps as many as 200 panthers,” says Larry Williams, a Service biologist who coordinates recovery efforts for the subspecies. “And they seem to be dispersing.”

But conservation efforts have not been without their challenges. Because their numbers were so limited when the recovery planning began in the 1970s, maintaining genetic diversity became a priority.

“There were so few and the gene pool was so shallow,” explains Williams. “Genetic analysis indicated high levels of inbreeding, which led to anomalous health issues: cats had holes in their hearts; many males only had one testicle and abnormal sperm. So the tiny population was rapidly trending toward extinction.”

In order to save the subspecies, eight female Texas cougars – “the closest relative to the Florida panther,” says Williams – were introduced to the cats in Florida. Before long, inbreeding rates declined and the population began to grow.

Today, the Service, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and other partners are focused on making panther conservation compatible with private landownership. Already, the U.S. Department of Agriculture administers a program that includes reimbursement for livestock killed by large predators such as jaguars. But according to Williams, it will become increasingly important to create programs that financially incentivize landowners to become part of the solution by creating and maintaining suitable panther habitat.

The Florida panther, according to the Service’s recovery plan, would be delisted once there are three populations of 240 animals. “We could reach a population of 240 animals in South Florida very soon,” says Williams. “To get three populations of 240 each would require reintroductions, and that doesn't seem likely at this time. Therefore, our emphasis is on working with private landowners to help the existing population expand on its own."

CANADA LYNX

A cat that fancies colder climes, the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) is yet another target for recovery. A mid-sized feline with a silvery-brown coat and long black ears tufts, the lynx boasts huge feet that allow it to stalk and capture snowshoe hare – its primary prey – in the deep, powdery snow common throughout much of its North American range.

Photo credit: Eric Kilby/Creative Commons

Lynx thrive in the expansive boreal forests of northern Canada and Alaska, which support high hare densities. “However, historic lynx numbers and distributions in the Lower 48 states are uncertain and clouded by inaccurate and unreliable trapping records, anecdotal occurrence information, confusion and misidentification with the similar but much more common bobcat, and incomplete understanding of lynx habitat needs and the role of immigration from Canada in sustaining Lower 48 populations,” explains Jim Zelenak, a biologist in the Service’s Montana Field Office.

In 1977, the Service wrote that lynx had been “extirpated in 15 of 30 states in which it was thought to have occurred,” and its status was of concern in 14 of the 15 states in which it remained. In 2000, the Service listed the contiguous U.S. distinct population segment (DPS) of lynx as threatened. However, unlike many listed species, and despite earlier conclusions about the lynx’s status, there was no compelling evidence of a population decline or substantial range contraction. Rather, the DPS was listed because regulatory mechanisms were deemed inadequate to ensure its persistence, particularly regarding potential habitat impacts on public lands.

Also in 2000, the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Montana completed an exhaustive review of all available lynx records for the Lower 48. This important work verified records of lynx in only 24 states, most with very few records, and others where records were correlated with intermittent mass dispersal of lynx into the northern U.S. following cyclic hare population crashes in Canada. Many of the records occurred in habitats that biologists now believe are naturally incapable of supporting lynx.

“One of the challenges of lynx conservation is un-telling a story that’s already been told,” says Zelenak. “Our current understanding, based largely on research conducted since the DPS was listed, is that most lynx habitats in the Lower 48 are naturally marginal compared to those in Canada and Alaska. We are at the southern edge of the range where boreal forests transition to more temperate forests that typically don’t provide consistent hare densities capable of supporting lynx populations. However, a handful of places – northern Maine, northeastern Minnesota, northwestern Montana and northeastern Idaho, northcentral Washington, and the Greater Yellowstone Area of southwestern Montana and northwestern Wyoming – have supported persistent lynx subpopulations. These are the places we think are essential to conserving lynx in the Lower 48.”

Since the lynx was listed, most federal land managers have, in coordination with the Service, formally amended their management plans to conserve lynx and hare habitat. In Maine, where most lynx occur on private commercial timber lands, the Service has provided incentives for landowners to develop forest management plans and design landscapes that will continue to support lynx.

“We have plans covering about 600,000 acres (242,810 hectares) intended to create and maintain lynx habitat in those landscapes,” says Mark McCollough, an endangered species specialist with the Service’s Maine Field Office. “We need to do more to offset the anticipated decline in lynx habitat in Maine over the next 30 years from changing forest practices, but it’s a start.”

Additionally, the Service must determine if other factors threaten the persistence of lynx in the Lower 48. Chief among those concerns are the potential impacts of climate change, which may be increasing the rate at which boreal forest habitats are receding northward and upslope in elevation, decreasing snowfall depths and durations, thus reducing the lynx’s competitive advantage over bobcats and other hare predators, and increasing forest insect outbreaks and forest fire size and intensity.

Ben Ikenson is a New Mexico-based freelance writer.

