Africa may boast about playing host to the Big Five, lion and leopard included of course, but when it comes to cool cats the jaguar is right up there with the best of them.

Not that they’re easy to spot, especially in the U.S. where ‘El Jefe’ remains the only individual living in the wild. Below from Fox News:

In a video released Wednesday by Conservation CATalyst and the Center for Biological Diversity, the jaguar can be seen walking through a forest and across a stream in the Santa Rita Mountains just outside Tucson…

“Studying these elusive cats anywhere is extremely difficult, but following the only known individual in the U.S. is especially challenging,” Chris Bugbee, a biologist with Conservation CATalyst, said. “We use our specially trained scat detection dog and spent three years tracking in rugged mountains, collecting data and refining camera sites; these videos represent the peak of our efforts”…

El Jefe has been photographed repeatedly by remote sensor cameras in the Santa Ritas over the past few years. He is the only verified jaguar in the United States, since Macho B was euthanized as a result of injuries suffered in March 2009.

Sadly El Jefe’s habitat is under great threat, with plans afoot to turn the area into a massive copper mine. Experts believe that were this to happen the future of the jaguar in the U.S. may be rather short-lived:

“The Rosemont Mine would destroy El Jefe’s home and severely hamstring recovery of jaguars in the United States,” Serraglio said. “At ground zero for the mine is the intersection of three major wildlife corridors that are essential for jaguars moving back into the U.S. to reclaim lost territory. The Santa Rita Mountains are critically important to jaguar recovery in this country, and they must be protected.”

What a beaut, although if I could see one big cat in the wild it would be the snow leopard. Check the first footage ever captured of one hunting in the wild, what a bloody ripper.

[source:foxnews]