Jaguar Team To Meet
Jaguar Conservation Team Meets on February 19 at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters
The AZ-NM Jaguar Conservation Team (JAGCT) will meet in public session on February 19, from 10 am to 4 pm. The meeting will end sooner, if business has been completed.
The meeting will be at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, at the south end of the Altar Valley, which is south of Tucson, Arizona. See below for directions to the Refuge Headquarters or visit the following Web site:
http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/arizona/buenosaires/.
Directions to BANWR HQ and Visitor Center: from Tucson, go west on Ajo Way (Highway 86) to Three Points. Travel 38 miles south of Three Points on Highway 286 to milepost 7.5. If traveling on Interstate 19, take the Amado/Arivaca exit west, turn right at the T, and then left at the Cow Palace onto Arivaca Road. Proceed west 35 miles on the Arivaca Road to Highway 286, and turn left at milepost 7.5.
The JAGCT meeting is being held in the Altar Valley because the JAGCT has not met there since it formed in 1997. The meeting will afford an opportunity for local residents, especially members of the Altar Valley Alliance, to participate in public discussion of jaguar conservation issues. Several documented jaguar occurrences have been recorded in that general area since 1996. Interested folks can get a good feel for the setting in which these jaguars have occurred by reading: Ambushed on the Jaguar Trail: Hidden Cameras on the Mexican Border. This fascinating book was just published in late 2008. The authors are Jack L. Childs and Anna Mary Childs, who along with Emil McCain have been the core of the JAGCT’s jaguar monitoring efforts in the borderlands for a decade now.
The main focus of the JAGCT meeting will be a discussion of habitat issues in southern Arizona, particularly as they pertain to jaguar conservation. To start the discussion, Josh Avey, Habitat Chief for the Arizona Game and Fish Deprtment, will make a presentation on the Department’s comprehensive efforts to identify and conserve habitat within the state. Some remarkable work is being done on wildlife corridors and linkages in the context of landscape-level land-use planning and conservation. A comparable presentation and discussion, led by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, is envisioned for the next JAGCT meeting in New Mexico (May 21, in Lordsburg).
A more detailed draft agenda for the February 19 meeting is as follows:
1. Opening comments and ground rules
2. Agenda review/additional discussion points
3. Discussion of JAGCT Summary Notes
4. Updates on jaguar monitoring and reported sightings
5. Update on jaguar sighting report forms and notification process
6. Update on jaguar handling and capture protocols
7. The Altar Valley Alliance
8. Jaguar-related habitat connectivity issues and activities in Arizona
9. Department of Homeland Security funding for impact mitigation projects
10. Update on draft Jaguar Conservation Assessment
11. Discussion of tentative dates and locations for the next JAGCT meetings
12. Other Business
13. Adjournment (1600, or earlier if business has been completed)
Note: For further information on jaguar conservation in the Southwest, please visit the JAGCT’s webpage at http://www.azgfd.gov/w_c/es/jaguar_management.shtml. To receive electronically distributed updates on jaguar issues, including public notices of JAGCT meetings, please visit http://www.azgfd.gov/signup and subscribe to the newsletter, Endangered Species Updates.
