A campaign has been launched to save the jaguar in Northern Mexico and parts of south-western United States where its numbers are endangered.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will develop a plan to preserve habitats, starting with research into numbers and distribution of the animals, about which very little is known.

A Jaguar Recovery Team has been assembled and the Service is working with the Species Survival Commission/International Union for the Conservation of Nature to conduct the study. The team will report back in the Spring.

The work is being done because the animal is seen as endangered because of loss of habitat as more and more land is used for human activities ranging from farming to commercial development.