American
Ocelot
Awareness

The Plight of the Ocelot in America

FACT PAGE

•Ocelots are small wild cats about twice the size of a housecat. They are very elusive and stay away from humans, coming out to hunt primarily for small rodents only at dawn and twilight.
•American ocelots use to roam Texas, southern Arizona, and as far north as Arkansas and Louisiana.
•There are now less than 100 ocelots left in the U.S., broken up into two small populations in the scrublands of South Texas.
•Though the hunting, trapping and poisoning of predators back in the early 1900s wiped out almost all of them, deforestation from logging and wind turbines is the primary reason for their endangerment today.
•With so few left, hurricanes and wildfires pose a huge risk to their population.
•Busy roadways are also a big threat. The Texas Department of Transportation is putting up wildlife crossings to help.
•The Federal Endangered Species Act can actually complicate things because a large portion of the remaining ocelots live on privately owned ranches. Ranchers do not want government intervention on their land. The Safe Harbor Agreement can help mitigate this problem, allowing good faith actors to conserve without new restrictions on them or their land.

HOW TO HELP

•BZ Kids will be donating to the Texas A&M University Kingsville Foundation and their partner, The Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute (CKWRI) to raise awareness and increase donations.
•You have already helped awareness by reading this!
•A portion of all proceeds goes directly to the foundations that are supporting the ocelot.

MORE INFORMATION:

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