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Vox
3 days ago
- Health
- Vox
Trump officials plan to destroy a critical government program they probably know nothing about
is an environmental correspondent at Vox, covering biodiversity loss and climate change. Before joining Vox, he was a senior energy reporter at Business Insider. Benji previously worked as a wildlife researcher. President Donald Trump stands on the South Lawn of the White House on May 22. Samuel Corum/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images Nearly two decades ago, scientists made an alarming discovery in upstate New York: Bats, the world's only flying mammal, were becoming infected with a new, deadly fungal disease that, in some cases, could wipe out an entire colony in a matter of months. Since then, the disease — later called white-nose syndrome — has spread across much of the country, utterly decimating North American bats that hibernate in caves and killing over 90 percent of three bat species. According to some scientists, WNS has caused 'the most precipitous wildlife decline in the past century in North America.' These declines have clear consequences for human populations — for you, even if you don't like bats or visit caves. Bats eat insect pests, such as moths and beetles. And as they decline, farmers need to spray more pesticides. Scientists have linked the loss of bats in the US to an increase in insecticide use on farmland and, remarkably, to a rise in infant deaths. Insecticide chemicals are known to harm the health of newborns. Related The astonishing link between bats and the deaths of human babies The only reason we know any of this is because of a somewhat obscure government program in the US Geological Survey (USGS), an agency nested within the Interior Department. That program, known as the Ecosystems Mission Area, is the biological research division of Interior. Among other functions, it monitors environmental contaminants, the spread of invasive species, and the health of the nation's wildlife, including bees, birds, and bats. White-nose syndrome, a fungal disease, has caused massive declines in a handful of bat species, including the tricolored bat, shown here in flight. J. Scott Altenbach/Bat Conservation International The Ecosystems Mission Area, which has around 1,200 employees, produces the premier science revealing how animals and ecosystems that Americans rely on are changing and what we can do to keep them intact — or risk our own health and economy. This program is now at an imminent risk of disappearing. Send us a confidential tip Are you a current or former federal employee with knowledge about the Trump administration's attacks on wildlife protections? Reach out to Vox environmental correspondent Benji Jones on Signal at benji.90 or at or at benjijones@ The Trump administration has asked Congress to slash USGS funding by $564 million in its preliminary 2026 budget request. And while the proposal doesn't specify cuts to Ecosystems Mission Area, an email obtained by Vox indicates that his administration had proposed eliminating funding for the program. (The email was originally reported by Science.) Such cuts are also in line with Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's conservative policy roadmap, which calls for the government to 'abolish' Interior's Biological Research Division, an outdated name for the Ecosystems Mission Area. USGS has requested that the White House maintain at least some funding for the program, according to a current senior Interior Department employee with knowledge of the Ecosystems Mission Area. Whether or not Trump officials heed that request will be made clear when the White House releases a more detailed budget proposal in the coming days. The employee spoke to Vox on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk with the press. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also reportedly trying to fire government employees in the Ecosystems Mission Area, though a federal judge has so far blocked those efforts. Eliminating biological research is not good. In fact, it's very bad. For a decade now, EMA's North American Bat Monitoring Program, or NABat, has been gathering and analyzing data on bats and the threats they face. NABat produces research using data from hundreds of partner organizations showing not only how white-nose syndrome is spreading — which scientists are using to develop and deploy vaccines — but also how bats are affected by wind turbines, another known threat. Energy companies can and do use this research to develop safer technologies and avoid delays caused by wildlife regulations, such as the Endangered Species Act. The irony, another Interior Department employee told me, is that NABat makes wildlife management more efficient. It also helps reveal where declines are occurring before they become severe, potentially helping avoid the need to grant certain species federal protection — something the Trump administration would seem to want. The employee, who's familiar with Interior's bat-monitoring efforts, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the Trump administration. A northern long-eared bat with white-nose syndrome. Steve Taylor/University of Illinois A dead bat infected with white-nose syndrome under UV light. USGS 'If they want to create efficiencies in the government, they should ask us,' yet another Interior employee told Vox. 'The damage that can be done by one administration takes decades to rebuild.' In response to a request for comment, an Interior Department spokesperson told Vox that 'USGS remains committed to its congressional mandate as the science arm of the Department of the Interior.' The White House did not respond to a request for comment. In a Senate appropriations hearing last week, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum refused to commit to maintaining funding for EMA. 'There's no question that they don't know what EMA does,' said the senior Interior employee. Ultimately, it's not clear why the administration has targeted Interior's biological research. EMA does, however, do climate science, such as studying how plants and animals are responding to rising temperatures. That's apparently a no-go for the Trump administration. It also gathers information that sometimes indicates that certain species need federal protections, which come with regulations (also a no-go for President Donald Trump's agenda). What's especially frustrating for environmental advocates is that NABat, now 10 years old, is starting to hit its stride. 'We should be celebrating the 10-year anniversary of this very successful program that started from scratch and built this robust, vibrant community of people all collecting data,' said Winifred Frick, the chief scientist at Bat Conservation International, an environmental group. 'We have 10 years of momentum, and so to cut it off now sort of wastes all that investment. That feels like a tremendous loss.' Meanwhile, the cost of maintaining the program is less than 1 percent of Interior's overall budget. The government's wildlife monitoring programs are 'jewels of the country,' said Hollis Woodard, an associate professor of entomology at University of California Riverside who works with USGS on bee monitoring. 'These birds and bats perform services for us that are important for our day-to-day lives. Literally everything I value, including food, comes down to keeping an eye on these populations. The idea that we're just going to wipe them out is just terrifying.'
Vox
23-05-2025
- Science
- Vox
An extreme ocean heat wave did something remarkable to these fish
is an environmental correspondent at Vox, covering biodiversity loss and climate change. Before joining Vox, he was a senior energy reporter at Business Insider. Benji previously worked as a wildlife researcher. During a severe heat wave in 2023, scientists scuba diving off the coast of Papua New Guinea captured clownfish to measure their bodies. Between February and August, they calculated the length of 134 of these iconic, orange and white fish once a month, taking a total of six measurements for each fish. Those measurements revealed something peculiar: Most of the fish shrank. This week, the researchers reported their findings in Science Advances, concluding that the fish got shorter — on the scale of a few millimeters, or a small, single-digit percent of their length — in response to the heat wave. Morgan Bennett-Smith 'We were so surprised to see shrinking in these fish that, to be sure, we measured each fish individual repeatedly over a period of five months,' said Melissa Versteeg, a doctoral researcher at Newcastle University, who led the study in collaboration with Mahonia Na Dari, an environmental organization, and Walindi Resort. 'In the end, we discovered [that downsizing] was very common in this population.' Versteeg and her colleagues don't know how, exactly, the fish are shrinking — one untested idea is that the fish might be reabsorbing some of their bone material or tissue. But getting smaller isn't a problem. In fact, the study found, it may be an adaptation to help clownfish survive hotter ocean temperatures. Morgan Bennett-Smith When it's good to be small Last year, the planet was about 2.65 degrees warmer than it was in the late 1800s. This level of warming impacts wild animals in a number of strange, mostly bad, ways, from fueling koala-killing wildfires to causing corals to bleach and then starve. Related This is how many animals could go extinct from climate change But rising temperatures also appear to be making many species smaller. One especially striking study, published in 2019, found that birds shrank by an average of about 2.6 percent between 1978 and 2016. More recent analyses have linked rising temperatures to a reduction in body size of small mammals in North America and marine fish. Most of these existing studies report that animals, on average, are simply not growing as large. The new study on clownfish, however, suggests individual fish are shrinking over mere weeks in response to a heat wave, which, in the case of the Papua New Guinea event, pushed temperatures in the bay about 7 degrees (4 degrees Celsius) above average. Why do they do this? Being tiny has its advantages in a hot climate: Warm-blooded animals, like mammals, shed heat more easily when they're small and this helps them cool down. The benefits for cold-blooded creatures, such as clownfish, aren't as clear, though researchers think they may have an easier time meeting their bodies' energy requirements when they're small. Morgan Bennett-Smith Regardless of the reason, being small seems to help clownfish when it's hot. The fish that shrank, the study found, had a much higher chance of surviving. 'It was a surprise to see how rapidly clownfish can adapt to a changing environment,' Versteeg said. 'We witnessed how flexibly they regulated their size, as individuals and as breeding pairs, in response to heat stress as a successful technique to help them survive.' The study adds a layer of complexity to what is otherwise a depressing tale about the world's oceans. Heat waves linked to climate change, like the one that occurred during this study, are utterly devastating coral reefs — and in severe cases, are nearly wiping out entire reef sections. These colorful ecosystems are home to countless marine animals, including those we eat, like snappers, and clownfish. Amid that loss, animals are proving highly resilient. They're trying hard to hold on. Yet if warming continues, even the best adaptations may not be enough.
Vox
23-05-2025
- Science
- Vox
The curious case of the shrinking clownfish
is an environmental correspondent at Vox, covering biodiversity loss and climate change. Before joining Vox, he was a senior energy reporter at Business Insider. Benji previously worked as a wildlife researcher. During a severe heat wave in 2023, scientists scuba-diving off the coast of Papua New Guinea captured clownfish to measure their bodies. Between February and August, they calculated the length of 134 of these iconic, orange and white fish once a month, taking a total of six measurements for each fish. Those measurements revealed something peculiar: Most of the fish shrank. This week, the researchers reported their findings in Science Advances, concluding that the fish got shorter — on the scale of a few millimeters, or a small, single-digit percent of their length — in response to the heat wave. Morgan Bennett-Smith 'We were so surprised to see shrinking in these fish that, to be sure, we measured each fish individual repeatedly over a period of five months,' said Melissa Versteeg, a doctoral researcher at Newcastle University, who led the study in collaboration with Mahonia Na Dari, an environmental organization, and Walindi Resort. 'In the end, we discovered [that downsizing] was very common in this population.' Versteeg and her colleagues don't know how, exactly, the fish are shrinking — one untested idea is that the fish might be reabsorbing some of their bone material or tissue. But getting smaller isn't a problem. In fact, the study found, it may be an adaptation to help clownfish survive hotter ocean temperatures. Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith When it's good to be small Last year, the planet was about 2.65 degrees warmer than it was in the late 1800s. This level of warming impacts wild animals in a number of strange, mostly bad, ways, from fueling koala-killing wildfires to causing corals to bleach and then starve. Related This is how many animals could go extinct from climate change But rising temperatures also appear to be making many species smaller. One especially striking study, published in 2019, found that birds shrank by an average of about 2.6 percent between 1978 and 2016. More recent analyses have linked rising temperatures to a reduction in body size of small mammals in North America and marine fish. Most of these existing studies report that animals, on average, are simply not growing as large. The new study on clownfish, however, suggests individual fish are shrinking over mere weeks in response to a heat wave, which, in the case of the Papua New Guinea event, pushed temperatures in the bay about 7 degrees (4 degrees Celsius) above average. Why do they do this? Being tiny has its advantages in a hot climate: Warm-blooded animals, like mammals, shed heat more easily when they're small and this helps them cool down. The benefits for cold-blooded creatures, such as clownfish, aren't as clear, though researchers think they may have an easier time meeting their bodies' energy requirements when they're small. Credit: Morgan Bennett-Smith Regardless of the reason, being small seems to help clownfish when it's hot. The fish that shrank, the study found, had a much higher chance of surviving. 'It was a surprise to see how rapidly clownfish can adapt to a changing environment,' Versteeg said. 'We witnessed how flexibly they regulated their size, as individuals and as breeding pairs, in response to heat stress as a successful technique to help them survive.' The study adds a layer of complexity to what is otherwise a depressing tale about the world's oceans. Heat waves linked to climate change, like the one that occurred during this study, are utterly devastating coral reefs — and in severe cases, are nearly wiping out entire reef sections. These colorful ecosystems are home to countless marine animals, including those we eat, like snappers, and clownfish. Amid that loss, animals are proving highly resilient. They're trying hard to hold on. Yet if warming continues, even the best adaptations may not be enough.
Vox
21-05-2025
- Vox
These photos are literally saving jaguars
is an environmental correspondent at Vox, covering biodiversity loss and climate change. Before joining Vox, he was a senior energy reporter at Business Insider. Benji previously worked as a wildlife researcher. Haga clic aquí para leer esta historia en español. SONORA, Mexico — This landscape didn't seem like a place to find jaguars, the world's most famous jungle cat. The ground was parched and rocky and mostly brown, other than the occasional cactus or palm tree. It was so hot and dry that even some of the prickly nopales were wilting. Yet there it was — in the playback screen of a motion-sensing camera, strapped to an oak tree near a dry stream bed. Less than a week earlier, a large jaguar had walked exactly where I was now standing. Even from the small camera display, the cat looked imposing, with its oversized paws and a wide, skull-crushing jaw. The Northern Jaguar Reserve is nestled in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. During our visit in April, the dry season, there was little green vegetation other than desert plants like organ pipe cactuses and agave. Ash Ponders for Vox It was a blistering afternoon in April, and I was in the Northern Jaguar Reserve, a protected area in Sonora about 125 miles south of the US border in Arizona. The reserve and the region around it are home to the world's northernmost population of jaguars, the largest cats in the Western Hemisphere, as well as three other species of wild felines: ocelots, bobcats, and mountain lions, or pumas. The cat on the screen was named El Guapo. He's the largest of five or six resident jaguars in the reserve and has likely fathered a handful of kittens, Miguel Gómez Ramírez, the reserve manager, told me. El Guapo has a bold personality: While some of the park's jaguars get spooked by the flash or sound of motion cameras scattered through the reserve, jumping in the air like surprised house cats, El Guapo doesn't seem to care. It's as if he knows he's at the top of the food chain. Previous Next 1 / 4 El Guapo. Courtesy of the Northern Jaguar Project While jaguars are often associated with the tropics, they once ranged as far north as Southern California, the Grand Canyon, and possibly even Louisiana. The US had jaguars! Then they were gone. By the mid-1900s, ranchers and hunters had exterminated these felines, largely because they were seen — like many other wild predators — as a threat to cattle. Jaguars do occasionally kill cows, though few cases of livestock predation in the US have actually been verified. Over the last few decades, several male jaguars have been spotted in their historic territory in the American Southwest — most recently, in December 2023. The extraordinary sightings give environmental advocates hope that jaguars could one day return to the US, fixing a broken food chain and recovering an important missing piece of Indigenous culture in the southern borderlands. Related The controversial plan to bring jaguars back to the US A jaguar pelt is on display at the Ecological Center of Sonora, a zoo in the state capital of Hermosillo. Ash Ponders for Vox Those cats all came from northern Mexico. They came from the region where I was now standing, slipping through some of the last remaining gaps in the border wall. That means any chance that jaguars now have of returning to the US depends on maintaining openings in the wall — and on an ample reserve of cats in northern Mexico. Jaguars can only reestablish in their northern range if they're sufficiently abundant in Mexico, where they're endangered. And like in the US, ranchers in Sonora have a long history of killing felines for their perceived, and occasionally real, threat to cattle. While the Northern Jaguar Reserve helps protect wild cats in Sonora, what had ultimately brought me to Mexico was a project to conserve jaguars that extends far beyond the park's boundary. For many years, a small group of scientists and advocates have been working to cast Sonora's jaguars in a different light — to turn them from beef-hungry villains to important features of the ecosystem that can bring ranchers financial reward. Those efforts appear to be paying off: The population of jaguars in the reserve and the ranching region around it is stable, if not growing, offering hope that people can live harmoniously with the predators they once loathed. The Northern Jaguar Reserve is, without exaggerating, in the middle of nowhere. I traveled there last month with Roberto Wolf, who leads the Northern Jaguar Project (NJP), an American nonprofit that oversees the refuge. After crossing the border south of Tucson, we drove another four hours or so to a charming ranch town called Sahuaripa, where the narrow streets were lined with brightly colored homes and full of stray dogs. Homes in the town of Sahuaripa are brightly painted and often have crosses mounted on their front doors. Ash Ponders for Vox A man named Don Francisco sells warm tortillas at dawn in Sahuaripa. Ash Ponders for Vox A one-armed statue of Jesus overlooks the town of Sahuaripa. The other arm, I was told, fell off in a lightning storm. Ash Ponders for Vox From there it was another few hours on to the reserve, largely on rugged dirt roads. (I felt like we were in one of those car commercials for all-terrain vehicles that are only useful in this exact scenario.) Some time after entering the reserve we stopped by a log on the side of the road. It was covered in scratch marks, like the arm of a couch in a home filled with cats. That was the work of a mountain lion marking its territory, said Gómez, who met us in the park. He pointed out a motion camera nearby that had previously captured the behavior. Right before arriving at our campsite, a skunk ran across the front of the car, did a handstand, and then disappeared into the scrub. The next morning, which was cloudless and crisp, we hiked to a place called La Hielería — the spot where the trail cam had recently spotted El Guapo. Large winged shadows crossed our paths, cast by vultures hunting for carcasses. On the drive from Arizona to Sahuaripa, we crossed the Yaqui River, just west of the Northern Jaguar Reserve. It cuts through the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. Ash Ponders for Vox Dozens of motion-detecting trail cameras are scattered throughout the reserve. Here, the display shows a mountain lion that walked by several days earlier. Ash Ponders for Vox La Hielería, once part of a cattle ranch, has an important place in cat conservation. In the late 1990s, when jaguars were reappearing in the US, a team of researchers began exploring northern Mexico to find out where they were coming from. As part of that work, a biologist named Gustavo Pablo Lorenzana Piña set up a motion camera by a stream bed in La Hielería. The camera captured, as expected, cow after cow after cow. But then, as Lorenzana kept clicking through, he saw it: a jaguar, 'the undisputed ruler of the neotropical forests, captured in a beautiful shot with shrubs and cacti in the background,' he said. The image, taken in early 2000, was the first ever photo of a live jaguar in Sonora. It was a female, later named Gus, in honor of Gustavo. The first ever photo taken of a live jaguar in Sonora. GP Lorenzana/CA López-González Her story ended — as most other jaguar tales do — at the hands of humans. The animal was pursued and killed for allegedly harming cattle, Lorenzana told me. Although it's technically illegal to kill jaguars in Mexico, hunting them for real or perceived harm to livestock was once a common practice. And it's still a threat today. In the late 20th century, at least five animals were killed on average per year in the state, according to the book Borderland Jaguars by David Brown and NJP co-founder Carlos López González. One man I met, in his 70s, told me he'd killed six jaguars on a ranch that is now part of the reserve. (He'd typically use dogs to track down the cats and chase them into a cave or a tree. Then he'd shoot them.) Ranch owners would pay around 5,000 Mexican pesos — worth around $260 in today's US dollars, and nearly double that in the early 2000s — per slain jaguar. Heraclio 'Laco' Duarte Robles killed several jaguars when he worked for a ranch in what is now the reserve. Now Laco is employed by the Northern Jaguar Project, where he helps keep the cats alive. Ash Ponders for Vox Jaguars do occasionally kill calves, though they prefer to feed on wild prey, such as deer or javelina, a small, fierce peccary that looks like a pig. In Sonora, jaguars and pumas might each kill a few calves per year, which typically amounts to only a fraction of a rancher's production. While Gus was on the losing side of encounters between ranchers and cats, she left a lasting conservation legacy. By showing up on a trail cam in La Hielería, she helped prove that Sonora was home to a breeding population of jaguars. That spurred an effort to buy up ranches — including the one comprising La Hielería — and turn them into a reserve. NJP purchased its first ranch in 2003, and has since added several more. Together they cover more than 56,000 acres. Today the Northern Jaguar Reserve has a small yet healthy population of five or six jaguars, according to Carmina Gutiérrez González, a biologist at NJP. Motion cameras have spotted another 10 or so jaguars passing through the region, said Gutiérrez, who identifies individuals by their unique patterns of spots. Our only in-person encounter with a jaguar was at the Ecological Center of Sonora, a zoo within a half-day's drive from the reserve. Ash Ponders for Vox After seeing El Guapo on the camera in La Hielería I wandered down the dry stream bed, where I stumbled upon a pile of feces. Jaguar feces, Gómez suspected. I've never been so excited to find a pile of shit in my life. People like Gómez who have spent more than a decade in the reserve have never seen jaguars face to face. My chance was close to zero. So poop? I'll take it. The reserve is essential though insufficient — it's relatively small, covering less than 3 percent of the area of Yellowstone, for example. Jaguars in Sonora, meanwhile, have incredibly large home ranges, and can travel as much as 10 miles a day, Gómez said. Protecting them in one small area isn't enough in a region where hunting still occurs. So the Northern Jaguar Project had came up with another solution. One morning, after a few nights in the reserve, we drove to a cattle ranch just beyond the boundary. We parked our dusty 4Runner next to a handful of cows and their calves, who froze and stared at us as if they had never seen humans before. Uriel Villarreal Peña on his ranch, Saucito, near the Northern Jaguar Reserve. Ash Ponders for Vox A rancher named Uriel Villarreal Peña, who owns the property, came out to greet us, trailed by two dogs. As we sat around his outdoor table, under the shade of a tin roof, he told us he owns a little more than 100 cattle — each worth several hundred dollars — that he sells in Sahuaripa to be exported to the US. For more than a decade, Villarreal, who wore a ball cap, jeans, and a button-down shirt, has been part of a program called Viviendo con Felinos. The program, launched by NJP in 2007, works with ranchers to place motion cameras on their land. When those cameras detect a wild cat — a jaguar, puma, ocelot, or bobcat — the nonprofit pays the rancher from a pool of funds they've raised from donors. The idea, said Wolf, who has a background in veterinary medicine, is 'to make living wild animals more valuable than dead ones.' Photos of jaguars are worth 5,000 pesos each (~$260), which is similar to what hunters might make for killing them. Photos of ocelots earn 1,500 pesos (~$78), pumas 1,000 pesos (~$52), and bobcats 5,000 pesos (~$26). Each rancher can earn a max of 20,000 pesos (~$1,038) a month for their photos — more than double the minimum monthly wage in Mexico. By joining Viviendo con Felinos, ranchers also agree not to kill any wild animals on their ranch, including deer and javelina. Roberto Wolf rests for a moment on our hike in La Hielería. Ash Ponders for Vox (Mexico has another, unrelated program run by its national livestock confederation that partially reimburses ranchers for cattle killed by wild predators. Ranchers complain that these funds, which are similarly meant to reduce hunting, are hard to access and inadequate.) Villarreal told me he joined the NJP program partly for the money. Cat photos taken on his ranch earn him a few thousand dollars each year, he said, which amounts to about 10 to 15 percent of his annual income from the ranch. But he also just likes jaguars. 'I'm interested in seeing animals, in preserving animals because they look pretty,' he said. It helps that jaguars haven't caused him many problems. When he was young, Villarreal thought wild cats were bad because they ate cattle, a rancher's livelihood. But over time he learned that predators will avoid calves as long as they have plenty of deer and javelina to eat. After sampling a bit of Villarreal's homemade Bacanora — an agave-based liquor, similar to mezcal; my job is hard, I swear! — he took us to see one of his motion cameras. It was 'nearby,' though getting there involved a short drive, a half-hour hike in the sun, and a run-in with a road runner, a manic-looking ground bird that always seems to be in a rush. Wolf and NJP field technician Heraclio 'Laqui' Duarte López show us a map at an overlook on our way to the reserve. Ash Ponders for Vox Hiking in the reserve takes you across volcanic rocks and scrubland, often in the blistering heat. Ash Ponders for Vox A cattle skull on the outskirts of Peña's ranch. Ash Ponders for Vox A vermilion flycatcher takes wing across the bank of the Aros River in the reserve. Ash Ponders for Vox Strapped to a wooden post, the camera was plastic, colored in camo, and roughly the size of a brick. We opened it up and clicked through the recent photos. Me approaching. Rabbit. Deer. Fox. A raccoon-like creature called a ringtail. Coati. Ocelot. Javelina. Javelina. Javelina. Javelina. Javelina. And more javelina. I asked Villarreal what he thinks when he sees a wild cat on the camera. '1,500!' he joked, referring to the money in Mexican pesos he earns from each picture of an ocelot. He then added, more seriously: 'It feels good to be able to say that they do exist.' To date, 21 ranchers near the reserve have joined Viviendo con Felinos. And together, their land comprises 126,000 acres — an area more than twice the size of the actual reserve. The program has in effect expanded the area across which jaguars and their prey are protected. What's more, it's so popular among ranchers that there's actually an informal waitlist to join, Wolf said. NJP has been slowly growing the program, but adding more ranches — and all of the photos they may take — is expensive, Wolf noted. Between fall 2023 and fall 2024, NJP spent well over $100,000 on photo awards alone. That doesn't include staff time or the cost of cameras, which run around $150 each. And those cameras often need to be replaced because, of all things, woodpeckers occasionally hammer out the lenses and sensors, Gómez told me. Viviendo con Felinos has given jaguars in Sonora more space to roam, and that alone is huge. But these iconic animals are also benefiting from a more fundamental shift in the region — a shift in its culture and customs. After our visit with Villarreal, we stopped at his neighbor's property, a large ranch owned by Agustín Hurtado Aguayo. Hurtado, now in his 80s, is the former president of the state's livestock association and a sizable figure in Sonora's ranching community. Several years ago, 'I hated felines,' he told me at his home in the city of Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, a few hours west of Sahuaripa. Cowboy hats and a pair of bull horns hung from the wall. 'I had a very bad image of them,' Hurtado said. Agustín Hurtado Aguayo at his home in Hermosillo. Ash Ponders for Vox Ranch-life photos and a longhorn bull mount line the wall of Hurtado's home. Ash Ponders for Vox Hunting wild cats was a practice that older generations passed on, he said, and it stemmed from the belief that cats hurt production. 'That's the training we had,' he told me. It was also normal for cowboys to hunt and eat deer, he said, which diminished an important food source for predators. After Villarreal joined Viviendo con Felinos, Hurtado grew curious about the program. He liked the cat photos from his neighbor's ranch. 'When I began to see photos from the cameras, I began to appreciate the animals,' he said, showing me his iPhone wallpaper of a mountain lion. 'Little by little, my vision of wild cats began to change.' Hurtado, who later also joined the program, realized that by limiting the number of cattle on his ranch, his cows would be healthier and there'd be more grass left over for deer. If he had more deer — and his workers refrained from hunting them — wild cats would kill fewer of his animals. These ideas are becoming increasingly common among ranchers in Sonora who have joined the program. 'If we as ranchers or as owners of property preserve the normal food chain, we have no problem,' said Jose de la Cruz Coronado Aguayo, another rancher in Viviendo con Felinos. There are other ways, too, to protect cattle from predators, such as by making sure calves don't roam the mountains alone. In other regions of the world, installing predator deterrents, such as electric fences, alarms, and flashing lights, is also effective in preventing predation. 'Cats can really coexist with livestock,' Hurtado told me. The reserve is surrounded by cattle ranches that mostly sell calves for meat. Ash Ponders for Vox While it's clear how photos of jaguars might make someone fall in love with wild cats, that doesn't explain how ranchers like Hurtado learned how to farm in such a way that protects both felines and cattle. Wolf, of NJP, says it often comes down to individual experiences. Ranchers learn over time that by leaving deer alone or creating new water sources for animals, fewer livestock go missing. What's also crucial, he said, is that by earning money for photos of cats, people in the program become more tolerant of their presence — and more open to compromise and finding ways to live with them. Before we left his home, Hurtado took out his laptop and showed us photos from the motion cameras on his ranch. They were spectacular: a mountain lion, close to the camera and wearing a look of surprise. An ocelot with what looks like a mouse in its mouth. And several jaguars, including the image below, taken in 2023 — which he had set as his desktop background. Previous Next 1 / 3 Photos from motion cameras on Hurtado's ranch. Courtesy of the Northern Jaguar Project Not everyone in Sonora suddenly loves cats. Ranchers still blame jaguars when their calves disappear or turn up dead. And some jaguars are still killed discreetly. One rancher who's not part of Viviendo con Felinos told me that since November he's lost more than a dozen of his calves, and he suspects that wild cats are behind the damage. He says the reserve should be fenced in for the benefit of ranchers. (There's no evidence that mountain lions or jaguars killed his calves, Wolf said.) Tension in the region boiled over earlier this year, when a mountain lion apparently entered the house where a ranch worker was staying and attacked his dog. The worker, a man named Ricardo Vazquez Paredes, says he hit the cat with a pipe and the lion ran away, but not before injuring his dog, Blaki. While Wolf and some of the other ranchers I spoke to suspect his account might be exaggerated — it's rare for mountain lions to go near human dwellings — the story raised concerns around Sahuaripa about jaguars and efforts to protect them. Climate change might also worsen conflict in the region. Ranchers I spoke to say Sonora is getting drier, meaning there will be less and less grass for cattle — and for animals like deer that wild cats eat. That could make cows weaker and more likely to starve and jaguars hungrier and more likely to attack. Research suggests that jaguars kill more calves when it's dry. In 2023, a rancher in Viviendo con Felinos named Diego Ezrre Romero lost a calf to a jaguar. 'The most critical thing on my ranch is water,' Ezrre told me. 'There are few deer because of the conditions.' Diego Ezrre Romero, a rancher in the Viviendo con Felinos program, in the verdant courtyard of his home in Sahuaripa. Ash Ponders for Vox This is to say: Conflict in Sonora isn't about to disappear altogether. Yet Viviendo con Felinos appears to be helping. Along with NJP's other efforts to engage the community — education programs, for example, and painting murals that depict the iconic cats in Sahuaripa and other towns — the group is making ranchers in jaguar territory more tolerant to cats. And thanks to payments, more tolerant to losses that they may cause. 'Without them [NJP] there wouldn't even be a jaguar here right now,' said Fausto Lorenzo, a rancher near Sahuaripa who's not affiliated with the reserve. 'All the ranchers would have killed them because that was the custom.' From Hurtado's home in Hermosillo, we drove back toward Arizona. The highway cut through fields of saguaro cactuses. Dust devils spun in the distance, moving like flying whirlpools across the scrubland. The sun sets behind the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains near the reserve. Ash Ponders for Vox The success that NJP has had in Mexico ultimately bodes well for efforts to restore jaguars to the US. The number of jaguars in the reserve is stable, Gutiérrez says, but motion cameras suggest that year-over-year more individuals are passing through the region. That's more individuals that could potentially spill into the US. One big problem, however, remains. As we neared the US border, the wall came into focus. It was metal and brown and rose 18 feet above the desert. Now stretching hundreds of miles across the Southwest, the wall has made the border largely impassable to wildlife — including jaguars. And it's still expanding. The Trump administration is now planning to complete one of the last unwalled sections of the border, a 25-mile stretch in the San Rafael Valley, about 150 miles northwest of the refuge, where jaguars have crossed into the US. The future for Sonora's jaguars appears promising regardless of whether Trump finishes his wall. NJP and other organizations have given these animals more space to live and helped lessen the threats they face. The real loss will be felt in the US. And not just among environmentalists and other wildcat advocates. Jaguars have lived in the US long before any of us. They're part of the country's nature heritage — of the ecosystems that are truly American — and their absence leaves our landscapes impaired. Ranchers in Sonora teach us that we can live alongside the continent's great predators. We just have to choose to. Update, May 20, 11:25 am ET: This article was originally published on May 20 and updated to include both peso and dollar amounts where applicable.
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Benji has grown as a person and agent: Simon Pegg on his 'Mission: Impossible' journey
British star says he has nothing but gratitude for being a part of a blockbuster franchise like " " for 20 years. Pegg has appeared in six "Mission Impossible" movies so far since 2006's "Mission: Impossible III". Tired of too many ads? go ad free now His character of had an interesting journey in the world of MI where he started as an technician at the Impossible Task Force (IMF), providing crucial technical support to Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt. Over the years, Benji transitioned into a field agent role, actively participating in high-stakes operations alongside Hunt in movies like "Ghost Protocol" (2011), "Rogue Nation" (2015), "Fallout" (2018), "Dead Reckoning" (2023) and " ", which released in India on May 17. "It's been such an amazing 20 years. I filmed my first scene for 'Mission Impossible' 20 years ago... I know it makes me feel old because I am. But I think about the journey from Benji in 'Mission: Impossible III' to Benji in 'The Final Reckoning'. "If you put those two characters together, you get two completely different people. That is because he's grown as a person and as an agent," Pegg told PTI in a virtual interview. While the character has definitely evolved, there has also been a personal evolution in him, Pegg noted. "I have (grown) as well, just getting to be part of these films and see how they're made and meeting people that have changed my life, so I feel very grateful," he added. "The Final Reckoning", the eighth and presumably the final instalment, sees Hunt racing against time to stop a rogue AI known as "The Entity" from gaining total control over the world's digital infrastructure and starting a nuclear war among the nations. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now It is a direct sequel to 2023's "Dead Reckoning". Actor , who reprises her role of assassin Paris in "The Final Reckoning", said a franchise like "Mission: Impossible" is physically demanding but she liked the challenge. "The best thing in this franchise is that I get to do everything myself, all the fighting myself, and we have the time to really push ourselves, train and work in detail and get the best physical performance ever. So I feel really grateful for that," the actor, best known for playing Mantis in many Marvel movies, said. Klementieff said the cast was well-supported by an impeccable crew of stunt people. "So many memories, bruises, being sore and all of that, but it's part of the fun too. And we got to shoot some amazing fights together too. So that was cool," Klemntieff said. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, "The Final Reckoning" also features Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Ving Rhames, and Angela Bassett. It is presented by Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions. Man Up Official Trailer #1 (2015) - Simon Pegg, Lake Bell Movie HD
