AZ wanted a jaguar collared despite 2 deaths in Sonora

The two young biologists tried to sedate the snared jaguar with a blow gun. They thrust at it with an improvised jab stick. The big cat kept charging at them. Finally, they were able to sedate the jaguar, but it was too late. The old, spotted male, his teeth broken and worn down, died within a day, apparently killed by the stress of the capture and the 100-degree heat. It was April 2003, deep in the nearly impenetrable thornscrub of the Sierra Madre Mountains in eastern Sonora, 135 miles south of the Arizona border. In the coming years, that ill-fated attempt to capture and put a radio-collar on a jaguar in Mexico helped polarize the debate over whether to capture and collar a jaguar in Arizona. Macho B, the last known wild jaguar in the United States, was captured on Feb.18 this year; 12 days later he was euthanized. Arizona Game and Fish officials have said the Mexican jaguar death stemmed from a lack of experience, equipment and training and is no reason not to capture a jaguar here. Still, the similarities between the incidents raise questions about what went wrong in the Mexican capture — and what officials here should have learned about snaring big cats...ArizonaDailyStar