Not a lot of Ocelots : ONCE THOUGHT TO HAVE VANISHED FROM NORTH AMERICA--VICTIMS OF HUNTING AND HABITAT LOSS--THE CATS MAINTAIN A SLENDER PAWHOLD IN THE THICKETS OF SOUTH TEXAS.

Publication: Smithsonian

Publication Date: 01-JUN-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 Smithsonian Institution

Peering through the thick, thorny south Texas brush, I can barely make out a feline form, its superb, spotted coat making it all but invisible. For nearly an hour, the creature stares at me in my pickup truck, ignoring a steady stream of vehicles crammed with bird-watchers bumping past on the road.

Suddenly, the cat--about twice the size of an ordinary tabby--rises, elegantly arches its back and glares at me one last time. Then, with the haughty grace of a fashion model, this rare Texas ocelot melts into the brush.

It was two decades ago that pioneer researcher Michael Tewes, now 44, came here to the Granjeno Research Natural Area, on the edge of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge (LANWR), as a graduate student on a lonely quest to find and study the Texas ocelot. Some biologists thought that it had been wiped out in the United States long before. "My ecology professor bet me a fifth of Jack Daniels I'd never find 'em," says Tewes, now coordinator of the Feline Research Program at the Caesar Kleburg Wildlife Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.

The professor lost, of course, partly because of the disappearing act I saw in Granjeno, which is characteristic of the ocelot. By retreating into congenial environments, it has managed to survive not only in Texas but also in the remaining forests and thickets of Mexico and Central and South America. No one knows how many ocelots there are in the world, but Tewes says the population in Texas is somewhere between 80 and 120. Perhaps 30 to 40 reside in and around LANWR, while the rest are concentrated 40 miles to the north on several ranches that provide friendly refuge.

At one time the dappled cat's range in the United States extended across much of Texas, as well as Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona. Everywhere, however, its tawny hide--a "most wonderful tangle of [blackish] stripes, bars, chains, spots,...

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