The jaguar sighting in Arizona of a male nicknamed Cinco, only the fifth documented in the state in 15 years, offers hope for the endangered species.
The jaguar sighting in Arizona happened at a remote watering hole in the Sky Islands south of Tucson, captured by a trail camera that the University of Arizona’s Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center set up near a streambed. Volunteer Chris Schnaufer hiked off-trail across rocky terrain and agave-studded slopes to reach the site, later discovering footage of Cinco drinking calmly for nearly five minutes before disappearing into the trees.
Cinco first appeared on camera in November 2025 and has since been detected more than 17 times, according to A-Z Animals. Researchers describe a pattern of “site fidelity,” meaning he keeps returning to the same drainages and mountain corridors. Susan Malusa, the center’s co-coordinator, called repeated detections “meaningful evidence of continued presence and landscape use, a positive signal for a species in recovery.”
Only nine individual jaguars have been documented in Southern Arizona and Southeastern New Mexico since 1996. Jaguars once ranged as far north as the Grand Canyon before hunting and habitat loss eliminated them from the United States by the mid-1900s. Breeding hasn’t been confirmed north of the border in over a century. Every cat seen in Arizona, including Cinco, is believed to have dispersed north from a breeding population centered in Sonora, Mexico.
Each jaguar sighting in Arizona, such as Jaguar #4, an adult male jaguar first detected in 2023, represents a rare glimpse of a species reclaiming lost ground, with only nine individuals documented in the southwestern United States since 1996. Photo courtesy of University of Arizona Wild Cat Research & Conservation Center.
Fringe populations like Arizona’s serve an important ecological function by adapting to hotter, drier conditions that may prove valuable as climate change reshapes the jaguar’s range. But without females and without genetic exchange from Mexico, these dispersing males cannot establish a self-sustaining population. Steve Spangle, who oversaw federal jaguar management for 16 years, put it bluntly: cut off the flow from Mexico, and “you can kiss jaguars goodbye” in Arizona.
That flow is precisely what’s under construction to be eliminated. A continuous 30-foot steel wall, in some places doubled into two rows of bollards spaced four inches apart, is being built directly through the Sky Islands corridors jaguars use to cross the border. The wall would slice through five of six formally designated critical habitat units covering roughly 640,000 acres in Arizona. Existing pedestrian fencing is already too continuous for jaguars to pass, while only vehicle barriers with wider gaps allow wildlife through.
Construction has continued despite legal challenges. The Center for Biological Diversity sued over the construction of a wall at Coronado National Memorial, calling it unconstitutional, but a federal magistrate has recommended dismissal. Crews have used explosives to blast slopes in the Huachuca Mountains, an area federally designated as critical habitat for jaguars and threatened Mexican spotted owls.
Department of Homeland Security waivers have bypassed environmental reviews required under the Endangered Species Act at dozens of sites, including the San Rafael Valley, Baboquivari Mountains, and Patagonia Mountains that researchers identify as vital to jaguar recovery.
What happens if these corridors close? Reintroduction has already been considered and rejected. The Fish and Wildlife Service denied a 2022 petition to reintroduce jaguars in Arizona, citing the lack of a donor population, despite a 2021 study suggesting habitat could support up to 150 animals. Malusa argues reintroduction without addressing the wall makes little sense anyway: “We can’t have our jaguars and their jaguars.”
Global context offers modest reassurance. An estimated 173,000 jaguars remain worldwide, more than half in Brazil, and international cooperation through initiatives like the Jaguar Corridor Initiative continues expanding protected habitat across Latin America.
Arizona’s population will never represent more than a small fraction of the species’ range. But conservationists argue that this doesn’t diminish its value, both as a functioning wildlife corridor connecting the Sierra Madre to the American Southwest and as an umbrella species, whose presence indicates sufficient water and prey for an entire ecosystem.
Cinco’s continued visits through March and April, alongside those of black bears, mountain lions, and bobcats at the same trail camera site, demonstrate that the corridor still works for now. Whether it continues to work depends on decisions made in Washington rather than in the Sky Islands themselves. Every jaguar sighting in Arizona, researchers say, helps identify exactly which paths remain open before construction crews reach them.
