H e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s b e r g

N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i v e s E d i t i o n

JEFF PONIEWAZ

No More Jaguar Cats, Just Jaguar Cars

The last known wild jaguar in the United States

was just found dead—somewhere in the Southwest.

In his 1948 Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold

recollected his youthful visit to the mouth of the Colorado,

lush and tropical where that river emptied

into the Bay of Baja California. Three decades later

he wrote: “All this was far away and long ago.

I am told the lagoons now raise cantaloupes.

By this time the Delta has been made safe for cows.

Freedom from fear has arrived,

but a glory has departed from the green lagoons.”

After the Glen Canyon dam went online

the Colorado no longer reached its destination

and petered out in the sand where there used to be

green lagoons and jaguars used to roam.

According to Mayan legend, their civilization

would collapse if the jaguar became extinct.

The last known wild jaguar in the United States

was pronounced dead not long before Earth Day 2009.