AZMEX 11-12-12 Fwd: $771,000 for trail cameras... to stop the border fence

Note:  As public money used, all photos should be made public.  

Begin forwarded message:

Date: December 11, 2012 8:32:12 AM MST

Subject: $771,000 for trail cameras... to stop the border fence

New UA study team has ties to Macho B's death

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/12/03/20121203new-ua-study-team-has-ties-macho-bs-death.html

Scientists involved in jaguar tragedy get U.S. funding

by Dennis Wagner - Dec. 10, 2012 11:10 PM
The Republic | azcentral.com



Note: Interesting that Homeland Security is providing $771,000 to researchers who are deploying 240 game cameras in the Tucson Sector
         to detect  jaguars whose presence would be used as an excuse to curtail further Border Fence construction. Ironically,  99.999% of the
         evidence collected on these cameras will be of Illegal Aliens and Drug Smugglers which will discarded and not used as a reason to
         complete the Border Fence.



"....In June 2011, a helicopter pilot with the U.S. Border Patrol watched a large, spotted feline amble through the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson."

"....The sighting meant that Macho B, the nation's only known wild jaguar when he was unlawfully captured and then euthanized in 2009, finally had been replaced. The revelation came just as the University of Arizona's Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center received a $771,000 federal contract to study jaguars."

"....Scientists are setting 240 motion-activated cameras along wilderness trails to monitor the endangered species' travel and habitat.
The research, financed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has major implications for the border-security fence in southern Arizona."


"...Already, cameras are set along game trails from the Baboquivari Mountains northwest of Nogales to the Animas Mountains in the southern boot heel of New Mexico. Researchers may get photographs of majestic, endangered felines." (not to mention Drug Smugglers & IAs)


"....The question of jaguar turf has major implications because developments in protected zones would face environmental reviews and potential lawsuits. Already, environmentalists are arguing that a trail-camera photograph of a jaguar's tail near the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine about 30 miles south of Tucson should block the controversial project."

"....Amid a "raging debate," he noted, researchers are struggling to get approval to put cameras on private property because ranchers and other landowners fear the pictures could lead to government regulation." (probably a reason why field cameras turn up "missing")




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