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Dead Ocelot Bad News for Falling U.S. Population

 

 

July 16, 2007 — By Ed Stoddard, Reuters

 

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas -- The unexplained death of a breeding-age ocelot in

southeast Texas has brought the endangered cat a step closer to extinction in

the United States, a wildlife biologist said Thursday.

 

The U.S. population of the northern subspecies of the cat, known as the Texas

ocelot, is down to around 100 or fewer. And the remains of the male one found

Sunday in the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge means there is one less.

 

" You really hate to lose any of them when there are so few of them, " said Jody

Mays, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist.

 

She said the animal had been subjected to a necropsy Wednesday -- an autopsy for

animals -- but it was too badly decomposed to determine a cause of death. It

could have been a snake bite.

 

The concern is compounded by the fact that the U.S. population lives in isolated

fragments so the dead male was one of just 30 to 40 breeding adults in the

Laguna refuge in subtropical southeast Texas near the border with Mexico.

 

So three percent of the refuge's breeding animals have been lost in one go.

 

" Habitat loss and fragmentation are the biggest threats to the ocelots, " Mays

told Reuters in a telephone interview. Cut off from other populations in

fragments or " islands " of habitat, the animals have a limited genetic pool.

 

Such populations also are vulnerable to sudden die-offs from disease or a sharp

drop in food supplies. And these risks rise as the population contracts.

 

Much of the land in this lush corner of Texas has been cut up into farmland or,

in the case of nearby islands like South Padre, into beachfront condominium

developments.

 

But the area is exceptionally rich in wildlife from birds to butterflies to

ocelots.

 

Ocelots are small, spotted or striped wild cats that weigh between 15 and 25

pounds. Subspecies are found from Texas down through Latin America all the way

to Argentina.

 

In the United States the cat once ranged into Louisiana and Arkansas but is now

restricted to this corner of Texas.

 

Source: Reuters

 

 

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