Thread: Border Wall Hinders Jaguar Recovery Along Southwest

They're kidding right???

Critics: Border Wall Hinders Jaguar Recovery Along Southwest

Updated: Jan 18, 2008 08:25 AM PST


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Interior Department has abandoned efforts to craft a recovery plan for the endangered jaguar in the U.S. Southwest.

The government says too few of the rare cats have been spotted along the Southwest region of New Mexico and Arizona to warrant such action.

But some critics of the decision say the jaguar is being sacrificed for the government's new border fence.

The fence is going up along many of the same areas where the cat has crossed into the United States from Mexico.

An official with the Center for Biological Diversity, Kieran Suckling, says designating U.S. border areas as critical habitat for the animal would constrain the Homeland Security Department in building the fence.

He says that's the issue, rather than the explanation from U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

The last jaguar sighting in Texas was in the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in the Rio Grande Valley in the 1970s.

For more information:

http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/Spec ... pcode=A040


http://www.team4news.com/Global/story.a ... v=menu90_9

The jaguar is going to have to take one for the team.

Besides, if they can clone sheep, they can clone jaguars.