LAGUNA ATASCOSA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Texas _ Looking southward from its last remaining Texas habitat, the endangered ocelot faces a deadly gauntlet if it is to cross the Rio Grande and reach its ancestral tribemates. Decimated by inbreeding, the spotted wildcat's future depends very much on mingling with its Mexican cousins.
Yet reaching them means traversing miles of highways, wind turbines, open fields and natural gas pipelines. The Mexican side is no less perilous. Development has also wiped out natural habitat there, and years of cartel violence have hobbled research into Mexican ocelot populations just south of the Rio Grande.
The small cat's latest challenge is the Trump administration's push to erect a wall along much of the Texas-Mexico border. Environmental groups and anti-wall politicians have argued that a physical barrier dividing the two countries could destroy the species by disrupting its migration patterns.
In reality, however, the ocelot's fight for survival is far more complicated. An examination of the science and politics surrounding the species shows the border wall is just one small piece of an ocelot puzzle that will require close cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico to solve even as diplomatic tensions between the countries rise.
DNA studies show Texas ocelots haven't crossed the border regularly for decades and live hemmed into two groups miles from the Rio Grande. Over the years, two general strategies for saving them have emerged. But both face significant challenges and could take years or decades before they begin boosting ocelot numbers.
Since the 1980s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's strategy to protect and restore the ocelot has focused on building wildlife corridors that ideally would reconnect the 80 or so remaining Texas cats to their cousins in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. The effort has included millions of dollars in land acquisitions and road crossings for the ocelot as the cat's natural habitat continues to disappear in the Rio Grande Valley.
"We certainly have our work cut out for us," U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge manager Boyd Blihovde said. "It's a race against time. We're working to make those connections available."
The border wall wouldn't disrupt the ocelot's natural migrations _ years of urbanization, agricultural development and habitat loss accomplished that long ago.
But a continuous border wall throughout the Rio Grande Valley would likely end the dream of re-establishing that lost connection.
Other researchers say the cat's best chance for salvation lies not to the south and across the river, but in the mostly empty northern reaches of the Rio Grande Valley and private ranches some 60 miles from the border. There, at least 50 ocelots live on private lands and more might be hiding in the brush. Yet persuading landowners to participate in ocelot conservation schemes that come with land use restrictions isn't an easy sell in South Texas, where a strong independent streak runs through ranchers and landowners.
The two isolated islands of ocelots remaining in Texas might not have time to wait for either strategy to unfold.
Texas ocelots have been inbreeding for decades, making them vulnerable to genetic deformities and potentially rendering them unable to reproduce. If something doesn't change soon, scientists believe they could become extinct within a generation.
Federal agencies clash over border wall's impact on endangered ocelot
That means the Mexican government holds the key to the ocelot's survival, at least in the short term. Officials and environmental groups are seeking to physically move at least one Mexican cat to Texas so it can pass on its genes and buy the species some time.
The process might sound simple, but it requires persuading Mexico to give up one of its own endangered ocelots. Even before the election of frequent Mexico needler Trump, the translocation effort had been plagued by delays and problems, as well as the raging cartel violence across the border in Tamaulipas.
