Spotted: first video footage released of only known wild jaguar in America

TUCSON, ARIZONA — Newly-released video of a male jaguar roaming the forests of the Santa Rita Mountains near Tucson, Arizona has environmental conservationists giddy. Footage of "El Jefe," America's only known jaguar living in the wild, has finally been caught on film, released to the public on Feb. 3. Researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity have spent the past three years trying to capture him on camera. He's been photographed more than 100 times since 2013, but it's believed the video, filmed with remote sensor cameras, is the first glimpse of a wild jaguar in motion in the United States in more than six years. Conservationists are excited about El Jefe's screen time, in large part because a Canadian mining company has established plans for developing a copper mine right in the middle of his territory. 750,000 acres of federally protected habitat were secured in 2014 for jaguar recovery, and the researchers are hoping a female jaguar wanders up from Mexico to join him at some point.

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