mudhen,
How many more times do you wish me to tell you to call the TPWD department at the Austin HQ & ask them?? = Each time from this instant on, I'll answer your question exactly in the same words.
(In the event that you decide to ask a REAL TPWD biologist, be sure to come back & admit on forum that they said that I was correct about what i was told.)
yours, tex
Well, the folks that would know at TP&WD don't work on Sunday, but I do have limited access to their endangered species data bases, and a quick search didn't turn up any recent element occurrences for jaguars in Texas. Likewise, by an odd coincidence, I have on my computer a digital copy of the current Jaguar Draft Recovery Plan prepared by a very large international panel of scientists and wildlife professionals from the United States, Mexico and all of the other countries within the current and historic range of the jaguar. I spent some time today reading relevant sections and looking at distribution maps and found no mention of recent sightings of jaguars in Texas. Likewise, distribution maps of current populations don't show any closer to Texas than the southern tip of Tamaulipas, and that small outlying population is apparently postulated on the existence of a particular forest type and not necessarily on recent reports of jaguar occurrence. All of the other existing jaguar populations in the U.S. and adjacent Mexico are west of the Continental Divide and the Sierra Madre Occidental.
If you would PM me the name of someone that can direct me to the photos to which you referred, I would be happy to contact them and educate myself about these recent sightings, and I will share the information with the folks that I know on the Jaguar Recovery Team.
