The presence of spotted cats (ocelots and jaguars) is just one of the many marvels of the Sky Islands. Since 2020, FotoFauna cameras have documented ocelots on eight occasions and jaguars on three occasions. To protect these federally endangered spotted cats, we do not include the records in our interactive results page. We represent the general location of the records with the cat tracks in the image below (ocelot = white print, jaguar = black print). Some cat prints represent multiple observations.
Both species were once more common in Arizona but were largely extirpated in the 1900s. Sporadic observations over the past three decades illustrate the potential for these species to return to the borderlands, and it’s vital that we continue to protect important habitat and movement corridors to allow them to do so.
