These endangered big cats are expanding north from Mexico, but remain constrained by the border wall and other barriers.
When biologist Ganesh Marin first observed a jaguar on a preserve in northern Sonora, Mexico, in 2020, he was elated. The feline continued showing up on Marin’s grid of camera traps along the Arizona border, which indicated he was making the region his home. Marin nicknamed the jaguar El Bonito, Spanish for “the beautiful.”
But in 2021, Marin, a National Geographic Explorer, noticed something odd about the photos. The spot patterns appeared to vary ever so slightly from one picture to the next. Further examination confirmed that he was indeed seeing not one, but two young male jaguars.
It had been thrilling enough to watch Bonito develop on camera, “growing up, getting bigger, growing a thicker neck and