SAVING THE OCELOT

The strikingly spotted ocelot is highly territorial and requires about seven miles of dense, thorny vegetation for hunting. Unfortunately, agriculture, urban development and roads have fragmented and replaced the species' territory, making habitat fragmentation the greatest threat facing this intriguing, endangered feline.

BACKGROUND

While the ocelot is widely distributed from Mexico through Central and South America, the U.S.-Mexico border wall restricts its movement across political boundaries. The ocelot is also being hurt by a loss of habitat in southern Texas, caused by an expanding transportation infrastructure and urban development following the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Associated land-development projects — including the annexation of 17 miles of land between Laredo and the Columbia-Solidarity Bridge — also contribute to the ocelot's peril.

Once hunted as “unwanted” predators and for their beautiful fur, today more ocelots are killed crossing roads than by any other human-made cause. Still, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has never granted the species much-needed critical habitat — and the federal government is still setting traps, snares and poisons that risk injuring and killing ocelots in the Southwest.

OUR CAMPAIGN

Back in 2010, the Center filed a notice of intent to sue the Obama administration to halt animal-killing activities conducted on behalf of the livestock industry throughout much of southern and central Arizona and New Mexico. And in 2016 the Center and the Animal Welfare Institute filed another notice of intent to sue the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ensure that ocelots aren't inadvertently killed as part of its long-running program to kill coyotes, bears, bobcats and other wildlife in Arizona and Texas. In 2017 under a settlement with the Center and the Animal Welfare Institute, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to conduct analyses aimed at ensuring that Wildlife Services doesn't inadvertently kill ocelots.

Check out our press releases to learn more about the Center's actions for ocelots.