Jaguars are an endangered species in the U.S., but the federal government has decided that there are too few individual cats in the U.S. to focus a large recovery effort on them here. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)
In a rare move, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it won’t try to
save an endangered animal. Rebecca Williams reports critics say the
government is giving up on the endangered jaguar:
Transcript
In a rare move, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it won’t try to
save an endangered animal. Rebecca Williams reports critics say the
government is giving up on the endangered jaguar:
The Fish and Wildlife Service says it won’t write a species recovery
plan for the jaguars that live near the U.S.-Mexico border. The agency
says there are not enough jaguars on the U.S. side to make a
difference. The agency says it’d be better to spend money on
larger populations of the cat in Mexico.
The Center for Biological Diversity is in an ongoing lawsuit with the
government about the jaguar. Michael Robinson is with the Center:
“It’s shocking that they’re writing off a U.S. species and stating
contrary to the law that they will not recover it.”
The cats roam back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico. Critics
believe the government scrapped the jaguar recovery plan because it
could interfere with a border fence being built between the two
countries.
The Fish and Wildlife Service says the fence was not a factor.
For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.