Deep in the rugged mountains of southern Arizona, a motion-activated camera captured something extraordinary: a large spotted cat silently moving through the wilderness. It was not a mountain lion or a bobcat. It was a jaguar. The animal would eventually become known as El Jefe, Spanish for “The Boss.” For several years, he was the only known wild jaguar living in the United States, making him both a local celebrity and a powerful symbol of a species that once roamed across a much larger portion of the American Southwest. El Jefe’s story is also surprisingly hopeful. After disappearing from Arizona and remaining unseen for years, researchers discovered that he was still alive hundreds of miles away in Mexico.

advertisement

Yes, Jaguars Once Lived in Arizona

Today, most people associate jaguars with the tropical forests of Central and South America. Historically, however, their range extended much farther north. Jaguars once inhabited parts of the American Southwest, with historical reports extending from Arizona and New Mexico to Southern California and even as far east as Louisiana. Arizona was genuine jaguar country.

That began to change as European settlement expanded across the region. Jaguars were hunted for their pelts, killed because they were seen as a threat to livestock, and affected by habitat loss and fragmentation. Government-sponsored predator-control programs also contributed to their disappearance.

By the middle of the 20th century, jaguars had become extraordinarily rare north of the Mexican border. The last verified female jaguar in the United States was killed in Arizona in 1963.

Enter El Jefe

El Jefe first appeared in Arizona in 2011, when a male jaguar was photographed in the Whetstone Mountains southeast of Tucson. He was believed to be at least two years old then. Researchers later documented him repeatedly in the nearby Santa Rita Mountains, where he spent several years roaming the rugged landscape. From 2011 through 2015, El Jefe became the only wild jaguar known to be living in the United States at the time.

How Did El Jefe Get His Name?

For an animal capable of disappearing into the wilderness, El Jefe became quite the celebrity. In 2015, Tucson-area schoolchildren helped name the mysterious jaguar. Students at Felizardo Valencia Middle School, whose mascot is a jaguar, voted as part of a naming contest. The winning choice was El Jefe, meaning “The Boss.” It was an appropriate name for an animal sitting at the top of the food chain.

The First Famous Videos of El Jefe

Researchers studying jaguars and ocelots installed remote cameras throughout the mountains of southern Arizona. Those cameras provided an unprecedented look at El Jefe’s secretive life. Footage released publicly in 2016 showed the massive cat walking through Arizona’s mountains, investigating his surroundings, and moving confidently through rocky terrain. The images quickly spread worldwide.

For many Americans, it was the first time they realized wild jaguars could still appear in the United States.

Then El Jefe Disappeared

After years of regular sightings, El Jefe seemingly vanished. He was no longer appearing on Arizona’s trail cameras after 2015. Researchers could not know whether he had died, moved somewhere cameras could not detect him, or traveled south into Mexico. Years passed without a confirmed sighting. Considering the dangers faced by wild jaguars, many people feared El Jefe might be gone forever.

El Jefe Was Alive

Then came an extraordinary discovery. Motion-sensitive cameras had photographed a male jaguar in central Sonora, Mexico, in November 2021. Researchers compared the animal’s distinctive coat pattern with previous images of El Jefe. Jaguar spots work somewhat like fingerprints. Each animal has a unique pattern that researchers can use for identification.

It was a match.

After approximately seven years without a confirmed sighting, researchers announced in 2022 that El Jefe was alive and living in Mexico. He had been photographed roughly 120 miles south of his former Arizona territory.

advertisement

How Far Did He Travel?

El Jefe’s movements demonstrated something important about jaguars: these animals can travel enormous distances. Researchers believe the jaguars occasionally appearing in Arizona are generally males dispersing north from breeding populations in Sonora, Mexico. Individual animals can move between mountain ranges while searching for territory, food, and potential mates. El Jefe traveled hundreds of miles during the years researchers followed him and crossed the international border at least twice. To a jaguar, Arizona and Mexico are not separate countries. They are simply parts of one enormous landscape.

Arizona’s Sky Islands

One reason jaguars can travel through southern Arizona is the region’s unusual geography. Southern Arizona contains isolated mountain ranges known as Sky Islands. These mountains rise dramatically above the surrounding desert, creating cooler forests and wildlife habitat at higher elevations. The Santa Rita, Huachuca, Chiricahua, and other mountain ranges can function like islands of suitable habitat separated by desert “seas.” For wide-ranging animals like jaguars, connections between these habitats are extremely important.

Is El Jefe Really America’s Last Jaguar?

Fortunately, no. El Jefe earned widespread attention as America’s only known wild jaguar during the years he occupied the Santa Rita Mountains, but he was never necessarily the literal last jaguar capable of entering the United States.

Other male jaguars have subsequently been documented in southern Arizona.

That includes a male known as Sombra, photographed in the Chiricahua Mountains, as well as other individual jaguars detected near the international border. More recently, another male nicknamed Cinco has been documented moving through southern Arizona’s Sky Islands. These rare appearances suggest that Arizona remains within the natural dispersal range of northern jaguars.

Could Jaguars Return to Arizona?

This is one of the biggest questions in U.S. jaguar conservation. More than 99 percent of the jaguar’s modern range lies in Central and South America, and the handful of animals documented in the United States in recent decades have been males believed to have traveled north from Mexico.

There is currently no known breeding population of jaguars in the United States, and breeding has not been documented here for more than a century. However, the occasional arrival of animals like El Jefe demonstrates that suitable habitat still exists in portions of the Southwest. The future of jaguars in Arizona will depend heavily on preserving habitat and maintaining wildlife corridors that allow animals to move between Mexico and the United States.

Why El Jefe Matters

El Jefe became much more than one unusually adventurous cat. His story changed the way many people viewed Arizona’s wilderness. The presence of a jaguar only about 30 miles from Tucson demonstrated that even landscapes near major cities can still support extraordinary wildlife.

His movements also helped scientists better understand how northern jaguars use mountain habitats and travel across enormous territories. Most importantly, El Jefe showed that jaguars’ disappearance from the United States does not have to be permanent.

A Ghost of Arizona’s Wild Past

There is something remarkable about imagining a jaguar silently walking through the mountains of southern Arizona. Long before highways, cities, ranches, and international borders divided the landscape, jaguars moved freely throughout portions of the Southwest. El Jefe followed those same ancient pathways more than a century after his species had nearly disappeared from the United States.

And he may not be the last.

As new jaguars continue to occasionally appear in Arizona, El Jefe’s story has become less about the final member of a disappearing species and more about the possibility of return. Somewhere in the mountains of the Southwest, the tracks of America’s largest wild cat may still appear in the dust.

advertisement

How to Help

To help save the jaguar, you can donate to the Arizona Game and Fish Conservation Efforts or sign up for alerts at Defenders of Wildlife.

advertisement