Name: The Debate Over Reintroducing Jaguars to North America
Uploaded: 2022-12-20T21:02:49.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Debate Over Reintroducing Jaguars to North America' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-20. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The Debate Over Reintroducing Jaguars to North America' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-12-20. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience have you followed the the Jaguar debate that's
going on right now no um it's a great one man so defining it's one of the Jag
okay where I back up I'm gonna tell you an empiric like I'm gonna tell you
something that's like objectively true okay okay it's objectively true that we
had a population of jaguars in the United States of America up until the 1800s
right it's just they just were what's debated is was it how stable was it how
widespread was it some people would point to well like basically limited to
southern Arizona some people would look and be well west Texas New Mexico
southern Arizona what about members of the Coronado expedition drawing a
distinction between lions and jaguars all the way up like toward the Platte
River
okay like why would they say both mmm you know I mean like they're what are
they
confusing where's the Platte River oh so in the in the in the more in the
southern
plains the southern Great Plains of the United States flowing across Kansas
okay
oh wow
where you have instances of people mentioning things that you sort of like
looking at you like man they got well if they weren't talking about Jaguar what
the
hell they talking about how do they describe it
leopards mmm okay and and a lot of times someone will say you know there'll be
a
reference to a large cat and you can't rule out well maybe in the historic
record
they're probably talking about mountain lions but what do you do in a case
where
you have a historic record and someone is in some oddball place southern
Colorado and they're talking about they have lions and leopards oh wow and
lions
and leopards so it's like I guess we're talking I mean they gotta be they have
to be
referring to Jaguars right what much more widely dispersed so as as as people
get
into talking about Jaguar recovery of which I'm a I'm a I'm a proponent with an
asterisk like when people get talking about Jaguar recovery you have to define
what
that looks like and there are some who would say Jaguar recovery in North
America as a
collaborative effort between us Mexico Belize whoever else has rolled into this
Jaguar recovery plan Jaguar recovery in North America would mean
recovering them across core habitat okay that's a term you hear all the time
like core habitat
so then you got to argue over what is the line what's core habitat for Jaguars
and some people will argue and many of them have motivation some of them are
honest some of them
have other kind of you know political motivation to say that core habitat is
not Arizona
that was always fringe stray males one or two here and there long periods of
absence it wasn't core
habitat other people would argue that Arizona was absolutely core habitat and
if we're going to restore
Jaguars and core habitat we're going to be restoring Jaguars in some portion of
the lower 48
meaning eventually and recovery would look a couple ways one is like
protections and you would
watch how Jaguars are able to flow back and forth across the border a big
question around Jaguar recovery is the border wall
okay how much would how much would a border wall impact large mammal movements
so that's an aspect if we don't allow recovery in that way
we make recovery in that way difficult do we truck Jaguars up and turn them
loose in Arizona New Mexico
West Texas really you're going to turn them loose right
I love it dude I love them and I honestly don't think um
you know they they like live in such low population abundances they have such
huge home ranges I don't think it would ever be that there was like a Jaguar
problem
there's no Jaguar problem yeah I don't think you're going to have people you
know the Kate where where you know you might recover wolves
in some area and lose two-thirds of the elk like seemingly overnight I just I
can't picture that that's I think you'd lose a lot of lions
you lose a lot of mountain lions probably but do you think they'd be forced out
I think due to predation
I think that probably a common I think a combination of both like them killing
them and then just range reduction because it is big cat
but dude I like I'm I'm a conflict averse enough where I don't want it's like
trucking them in to me is way in the few
future um and man it would be a political battle and you'd make a spotted owl
out of the Jaguar
you'd have some level of people that just came to hate them sons of bitches
because they were a symbol of federal overreach
but them just coming across the border I think is a great way it's a great
thing to root for
well I love them that's where they think El Jefe is coming through
yeah that's one of the reasons why they call him El Jefe he manages to make his
way through the wall
yeah and there's but it's you know for a Jaguar to come hanging out in the U.S.
it's it's uh you know it's a dicey life
I don't think he knows
no no of course he doesn't know but you wind up uh there's not like a great in
recent decades there's not a great
likelihood of finding uh of establishing a habitat and having a female to breed
with