"PHOENIX — An environmental group on Monday petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help reintroduce the jaguar to the Southwest, where it roamed for hundreds of thousands of years before being whittled down to just one of the big cats known to survive in the region.

The male jaguar, named Sombra — shadow in Spanish — has been seen in southern Arizona several times since first captured on a wildlife camera in the Dos Cabezas Mountains in 2016, including a 2017 video by the Center for Biological Diversity. There are a handful of jaguars known to be living across the border in the Mexican state of Sonora.

The center wants the federal agency to help expand critical habitat for jaguars in remote areas and launch an experimental population in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest along the border with Arizona."

Anita Snow reports for the Associated Press December 12, 2022. [2]