Miriam Horn and George Schaller visit jaguar conservationists in the US-Mexico borderlands

In May 2024, just shy of 91, Schaller visited jaguar conservationists working on the  border where the New World’s only great cat used to cross freely from Mexico into a range that stretched from California to Texas. I was invited to join by Beth Wald, a photographer who traveled with George many times in central Asia and Latin America; and Turtle Southern, who helped establish the Northern Jaguar Reserve in Sonora, MX and is now with the Rewilding Institute.

Our host in Sonora was the remarkable Valer Clark, who founded Cuenca los Ojos and with local colleagues has restored 120,000 acres of degraded ranchland, including critical riparian jaguar habitat. Schaller visited with Warner Glenn, founder of the pioneering Malpai Borderlands Group, one of the first rancher-led collaboratives working to protect this land and wildlife, and spoke at the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson. Guided by Aletris Neils and Chris Bugbee of Conservation CATalyst, we visited the Sky Islands in Arizona, where El Jefe and three other male jaguars still roamed in recent decades, and discussed what it would take to restore a breeding population in the United States.