Only Wild Jaguar in US Photographed Near Site of Proposed Copper Mine

Photographs of the only jaguar known to live wild in the United States present evidence that the cat makes its home near the proposed site of a $1.23 billion copper mine in the mountains southeast of Tucson, Ariz.

Federally financed remote cameras captured images of the rare cat as it roamed the eastern flank of the Santa Rita Mountains for at least nine months. The jaguar was photographed in a joint operation between the University of Arizona and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in five different locations on seven occasions. (Check out the photos here.)

Authorities were tipped off to the presence of the jaguar after a hunter captured a picture of the cat's tail last September, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

It is the only known jaguar in the United States since 2009 when a 15-year-old jaguar known as Macho B died.

However, the lone jaguar, rare as it may be, may not be enough to change the plans for constructing the Rosemont Copper Mine in the immediate area of the jaguar's habitat. Currently the land around the proposed mine site is considered a critical habitat, but proponents of the copper mine say that label is not justified.

Kathy Arnold, Rosemont Copper's vice president for environmental and regulatory affairs, said that because the jaguar's native range extends from northern Mexico through Central America and down into South America, the Santa Rita Mountains where the lone cat makes its home should not be considered a critical habitat for the cat.

"At worst, the project may modify this lone male jaguar's roaming patterns," Arnold said, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

"That solitary male jaguar is no reason for critical habitat. We don't have any breeding pairs," Arizona Game and Fish Department spokesman Jix Paxon told the Star.

Still, the mine has its opponents. Conservation advocate Randy Serraglio, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said: "This mine will be absolutely devastating to the health and welfare of the people, plants and animals in the area," the Star reported in 2011 when the U.S. Forest Service reviewed plans for the proposed mine.

Michael Robinson, an activist for the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, echoed Serraglio's sentiment, saying that a critical habitat is considered such exactly because there is a minimal presence of an endangered animal.

"It's hard to see how an area with possibly the only jaguar living in the wild in the United States, how that habitat would not be essential to recovery here," he told the Star.