the jaguar, one of the most elusive creatures of the south American rainforests, is now a protected species in the us . The us Fish and Wildlife Service added the big cat to its endangered species list last month after the Southwest Center for Biodiversity, an environmental group based in Arizona, took it to court to force its inclusion.
The cat's main stronghold is the Amazon rainforest. But there have been rare sightings in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, just north of the Mexican border. The listings makes it illegal to kill a jaguar, but environmentalists are angry that the Fish and Wildlife Service did not go further and protect stretches of riverine forest as refuges for the cats. The service argues that this would achieve little because there are not resident breeding jaguars in the us : the animals simply roam across the border. Alan Rabinowitz, working with the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York, says that the species would benefit more from efforts to find and protect those jaguars than measures to preserve poor habitat.
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