Did Arizona Officials Contribute to Death of Jaguar?
I was saddened by an article that appeared on Livescience recently. The USA’s only known wild jaguar has died.
A rare jaguar captured and collared in Arizona two weeks ago was euthanized after falling ill, state game officials said.
The jaguar was the only one spotted in the United States in more than a decade. Officials captured the cat Feb. 18 as part of a program to study bears and mountain lions. A procedure had previously been put in place to attach a satellite collar to any such fortuitously captured jaguar, so wildlife experts could monitor its movements to learn more about the extremely rare creatures.
The jaguar stopped moving, however.
Biologists found the male jaguar, brought it to a zoo, and he was put down that day. Officials say the cat, named Macho B, suffered kidney failure, common among old cats.
Macho B was first spotted by automatic trail cameras in 1996 when he was about age 2 or 3. He was thought to be 15 or 16 – relatively old for jaguars – when he was euthanized.
The article continues:
The cat had dropped from 118 pounds at the time of his capture last month to just 99.5 pounds Monday . . . [a] necropsy (animal autopsy) will be performed to learn more about the jaguar’s condition and to possibly provide clues to how long the animal had been sick.
In a statement released yesterday, officials did not say whether . . . they might or might not have contributed the animal’s demise.
The Arizona officials may be keeping mum about their role in Macho B’s death, but I will weigh in. What follows is speculation based on my experiences working with big cats in California and Botswana.
To work with a jaguar safely, the cat must be anesthetized. Chemical restraint (as anesthesia is often called by wildlife experts) of a wild cat generally involves loading drugs into a syringe dart and firing the dart at the cat.
All anesthetic agents have the potential to trigger low blood pressure. Low blood pressure can damage the kidneys. This especially true of kidneys that are already compromised by pre-existing disease. Veterinarians generally prefer to run blood tests on patients before anesthesia so that the kidneys and other organs can be assessed. Obviously, it is not possible to run blood tests on a wild jaguar before darting him.
I suspect that Macho B, like many elderly cats, was suffering from kidney disease before he was captured by Arizona officials. The anesthetic procedure stressed his already weak kidneys and pushed them over the edge, causing his health to fail rapidly.
I should stress that I do not believe that the officials who captured Macho B caused his death. The kidney disease was going to catch up with the jaguar eventually. However, I do believe that Macho B’s death was accelerated by the procedure.
Finally, I am in no way convinced that the Arizona officials did anything wrong. Everything I have read indicates that their capture strategy and techniques were well thought out and executed (although it is not clear whether Macho B’s advanced age was considered when the decision was made to capture him).
The people who captured Macho B certainly were animal lovers. I have a strong hunch that they are utterly devastated by his death.
Photo credit: Colin Burnett
You have questions. 
[...] involved w/ Macho B’s case and who readily admits he is speculating. Worth a read, I think. Here’s the [...]
Isn’t it possible, also, that the cat being sick is what made it possible to sight him after he had successfully eluded humans for so long? He may have been less savvy and more out in the open.
[...] few days ago I posted about the incident, and speculated that Macho B’s initial capture may have hastened his [...]
It’s predictable that the public would assume any wild animal to be “healthy.” Its not too different when a wild animal such as a wolf kills his prey and people complain that the prey was “perfectly healthy.” But no one knows that — just because an undomesticated animal looks normal from observation doesn’t mean they are not sick. Predators take down the easiest prey — those that are compromised. Likewise, big predators hide health problems well so as to not give away that they are compromised. I can think of no species that does this better than a cat.
Cats that are sick go to great lengths to hide it — why would the king of all cats be any different? After having lost a dear feline to CRF, this situation doesn’t surprise me at all. The kidneys have to be at the point of no return for the symptoms to be obvious.
What I wish, would be that this situation could put more emphasis on CRF itself, rather than misplacing blame.
What happened to Macho-B’s pelt? Did acquiring his pelt play any part in hastening his death?
[...] Game and Fish officials has sparked quite a controversy. I have weighed in on the matter twice: here and [...]
[...] Someone I’ve heard of added an interesting post on Did Arizona Officials Contribute to Death of Jaguar? Vet BlogHere’s a small excerpt [...]