Wildlife Officials on Quest for Elusive ‘Weasel Cat’

After the third report in a month of jaguarundis darting through the brush, wildlife biologist Linda Laack took action.

She hid sensory cameras in the grasses of this Gulf Coast preserve in hopes that one of the rare weasel-like wildcats would trip a self-portrait during its hunt for rodents or birds. Such a photo would be the first of a wild jaguarundi in the United States since 1986, when one was found dead outside Brownsville.

The endangered animal, about the size of a house cat, usually roams land stretching from southern Brazil through Central America and Mexico. At one time, the animals reached north along Mexico’s Gulf Coast into the subtropical scrub of the Rio Grande Valley -- the only place they have been documented in the United States -- but their range is dwindling because of deforestation and development.

“They’re such a mysterious animal that we really don’t know a lot about them,” Laack said. “That’s why we would like to document them.”

The evolutionary line of the jaguarundi most resembles pumas and cheetahs, although they are usually compared to weasels for their gait and otters for their long, short-legged bodies.

Their name means “weasel cat” in German. The animals have no spots or stripes and come in blackish-gray or cinnamon brown. They have long, wide tails and weigh between 8 and 15 pounds.

Although difficult to catch, jaguarundis are seemingly easy to tame. South Americans kept them as pets for centuries because they helped control rodent populations. They were less popular among those with poultry, because the animals raid chicken coops.

In 1991, Arturo Caso, a Mexican biologist and doctoral candidate at Texas A&M; University-Kingsville, caught the first jaguarundi in more than a decade near his family’s ranch in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Since then, he has caught 23 in the same area, about 120 miles south of Brownsville on Mexico’s Gulf Coast, and placed collars with radio transmitters on them for tracking.

He is using the tracking data to complete a 12-year study of the animals that, according to Michael Tewes, professor of wildlife ecology at the university, will offer the first biological information on these cats.

Caso, considered the world expert on jaguarundis, says he has learned that the animals usually roam during the day, live alone and don’t scurry up trees, which goes against the conventional wisdom based on prior anecdotes and assumptions.

“I don’t think they’re designed to climb trees; the claws in their hind legs are not retractable,” Caso said.

The only previous scientific study of the jaguarundi was in 1989 in Belize, but it involved only three animals. A couple of animals also have been trapped in Brazil and western Mexico, but there were no published studies of them, Caso said.

Pat Burchfield, deputy director of the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville and the man who found the dead jaguarundi in 1986, said he is convinced that there are at least a few roaming the area. He said he recently glimpsed two, possibly a mating couple, in the thickets of an old Girl Scout camp.

“Why or how they’ve managed to elude trappers, I’m not quite sure,” he said.

The most recent sightings were reported by two U.S. Fish & Wildlife employees and a longtime refuge volunteer, so Laack believes that it’s just a matter of time before she gets photographic proof.