Based on this article, the collar jaguar was known in the area for more than thirteen years previous of the 2007 photograph. Thirteen years in southern Arizona with little or no detection whatsoever? “…two independent sightings in 1996 confirmed that jaguars still used Arizona and New Mexico as part of the northern most extent of its range.”

Thirteen years living on American soil, sounds like a citizen to me!

Jaguars, being well camouflaged and primarily active during the hours of dawn/dusk, probably aren’t going to be seen by anyone and everyone. Imo, if there are jaguars out there, surely 80-90% of them who are seen by individuals are going to be melanistic. Good lord, surely more than that, knowing just how observant the human specie is.

Regardless though, Pleasanton is close enough that within two years (or thirteen) a jaguar could easily make the journey if there was reason for it to. With habitat loss from people people and wildfires, jaguars are still threatened in this part of the world. It sounds like they’re moving up, and have been for a long time (if you consider the sighting in southern Arizona in 1996 a long time ago).

But I repeat. If two of the only three possibilities are “nearest impossible as can be”, why is everyone in such a tizzy? Someone’s missing poor Fluffy and I’m sure Fluffy is missing his evening meals, too. Someone set out a can of tuna, he wants to go home.

Thanks for posting the link to the LA times article, Ebonycrow. After reading it though, I don’t understand what you mean. Near as I can tell, it documents a Jaguar found southwest of Tuscon. That’s well within the range mentioned by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, and well south of the northernmost part of that current, documented range. Tuscon is even farther away from Pleasanton than that northern part I mentioned before.

There is no question that large cats have a very big range, and I think that there may well be mountain lions inhabiting or traveling through areas where, officially, there aren’t supposed to be any.

However, I still maintain that Pleasanton, California is way too far from contemporary jaguar habitat for a melanistic jaguar to be a likely or obvious candidate for the recent sighting there.
I do not say it is impossible, but the fact is that Pleasanton is just nowhere near the state of Arizona. Pleasanton is situated at about the same latitude as southern Virgina, quite a ways north of Georgia. California is a big state. We’ve got about 840 miles of coastline here.

Jaguars are native to the US (again I restate, as far north as Georgia in the east during the 1700s), for what reason do we have to think that they’re not still here in part? Or even, working their way back? For fun, the southern jaguars in Arizona appeared two years ago (who knows, maybe they were there long before that, but we only caught them on camera during 2007). What’s 25 miles a day and a couple of cubs since then?

In addition, I’ve stopped trusting Game and Wildlife officials. I’ve found sufficient evidence of mountain lions throughout the state of Kentucky, but regardless of what I collect “they’re not here and never will be”. I can understand if they’re protecting the animals from poaching (this could even be the same case with jaguars), but if they’re just being ignorant then that’s just stupidity on their part. Hope that gives you an idea of my feelings toward the Game and Wildlife Department, as far as what information you can get out of them.

According to the Arizona Game and Fish Department, “Today, the northern-most known population of jaguars is centered about 140 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border, in Sonora. Any jaguars that occur in the AZ-NM/Mexico borderlands almost certainly belong to that population.”

Pleasanton, CA., just east of the San Francisco Bay, appears to be hundreds of miles North and West of even the northern-most part of this current, documented range of Jaguars in North America.

Though I have noticed, for some reason, nearly everyone is adamant about saying melanistic pumas are impossible. I say poppycock. However! The majority of black cat sightings are easy enough to explain now a days as nothing more than a melanistic jaguar, especially in the area of Cali, that’s close enough to their current documented range in Arizona I don’t know why it would confuse anyone. Besides, if nearly every other cat species has been documented as producing a melanistic offspring at some point in time, why can’t the puma…?

Big cats have big territories, and even pumas can travel up to 25 miles a day, with a 500sq mile territory to just one cat. Mind boggling, that no one seems to be able to appreciate the great scale that these cats can travel!

ABCs, I think, are one of my favorite subjects. We get a lot of them here in KY, and I’ve made a habit of recording them since my aunt saw one in the soybean field behind her house. It was one of two things: A black puma, or a melanstic jaguar (wild or a pet). In the past, around the 1700s, jaguars had a range as far north as Tennessee and Virginia, some reports today claim they are currently as far north as Georgia.

Imo, the only mystery here is why people have to make it a mystery in the first place.