Mexico jaguar population grows 20% in eight years

Mexico's population of wild jaguars has grown 20 percent in the past eight years, according to a study released Thursday, a bit of good news for an iconic species whose numbers have been declining. There are an estimated 4,800 jaguars in Mexico, found the study, carried out by a consortium of institutions and academics with remotely activated cameras triggered by sensors. That was a 20-percent increase from the first edition of the study, carried out in 2010. "The presence of jaguars ensures that these ecosystems function, by controlling the population of herbivores, and is also an indicator of the ecosystems' good health," said Heliot Zarza, vice president of the National Jaguar Conservation Alliance, in a statement released by the World Wildlife Fund. The jaguar, the largest feline in the Americas, can weigh up to 100 kilos (220 pounds), though the ones found in Mexico rarely weigh more than 60 kilos. The yellow, black-spotted cats are found in 18 countries across the Americas, 90 percent of them in the Amazon rainforest. There are some 64,000 jaguars in the wild, a number that has been shrinking, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has declared the animal a "near threatened" species...MORE

So there are 64,000 of these critters, with 90 percent being located in Amazon rainforests. And yet, our all-wise government has designated 764,207 acres in the desert Southwest as critical habitat. This has all been endorsed by the courts, which found that even though the habitat was unoccupied, it was still essential for the conservation of the species, based on the opinion of the USFWS.

What has Trump and the Republican Congress done to reform the Endangered Species Act?

Its as if Congress itself was unoccupied.