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A hunters trail camera has captured another image of an ocelot. Although the location hasn't been revealed to AZ Game and Fish by the hunter, spot comparison by Wild Sonora shows that it is the same individual that has been photographed in the Huachucas twice before in Feb. and May of 2011.

See the AZ Game and Fish Dept. article about this ocelot sighting.

Today a new photo from May 26th, 2011 of an Ocelot in the Huachuca Mountains was released by the AZ Game and Fish Dept. The photo was given to AZGFD by two hunters who had set up an automated trail camera. The press release (attached here) says AZGFD will show the photo to biologists to determine if it is the same individual photographed on Feb. 8 of 2011.

After looking the photos over briefly it is becomes apparent that the 2 seperate photo records are from the same individual. This is great news for people who care about the region's fauna. With a minimum of almost 4 months in the range, this ocelot seems to have taken up residence in the Huachuca Mountains.

Click on this image for larger version. Colored circles indicate duplicated patterns on the left foreleg of this cat showing that this is almost certainly the same individual. Wild Sonora is the first to compare photo and bring you this exciting info.

It's becoming common knowledge that buffelgrass (Pennisetum ciliare) is a huge problem for native vegetation in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona. In Sonora the problem is much worse. Vast areas of Sonora are over-run with buffelgrass. Ranchers in Sonora continue to blade and till desert and thornscrub to plant this invasive grass, which helps as cattle forage primarily only in the short-term. Once well established the grass becomes fairly woody and cows tend not to eat it unless there is little else.

Unfortunately continued drought and poor range conditions in Sonora make blading one's ranch for buffelgrass seem like an atractive option. Government programs can also help subsidize planting.

In June I trekked with a friend to the top of the Sierra El Pinito, a good-sized range just Southeast of Nogales. The Sierra El Pinito nudge their way into the pine forest community at 2230 meters, high enough to compete for serious Sky Island status in Sonora. They are just South of the border from the Santa Ritas and Patagonias on the US side, but because of the the political boundary they are a world away when it comes to fire suppression and natural fire regimes.

To drive the point home the Sierra Azul, just to the south, was actively burning. The fire had burned a significant percentage of the range by the time we laid eyes on it. By the time we left the area it had burned itself out naturally. Little is done to combat wildfires and indeed, in contrast to U.S. fire policy, people don't treat every wildfire as an utterly dire situation.

In my 15 years of experiences in Sonora I’ve seen people with a very different attitude toward fire than I am used to. Little is done to suppress wildfires in Mexico. Fires often burn mountains, grasslands, and even buffelgrass sided freeways, just to burn themselves out without much attention from authorities or locals. Combined with the lack of resources to fight wildfire in Mexico, this has created vegetation communities with a substantially different fire regime than similar communities on the U.S. side of the border.

Some conditions that affect the spread of natural wildfire are unfortunately still present in Sonora, such as cattle grazing and logging. Luckily a few rugged and/or remote locations have even been spared these effects.

This dramatic difference in fire management bisecting the Sky Islands offers an opportunity to study the differences as well as the massive problems associated with fire suppression in Arizona and the West in general.