Research overview: the endangered Texas ocelot population

At the northern edge of the range, fewer than a hundred ocelots persist in two small populations in deep south Texas, making them among the most endangered cats in the United States. This overview compiles decades of monitoring at Laguna Atascosa and on private ranchlands documenting how loss of dense thornscrub, road mortality, and genetic isolation threaten the remnant. Reduced heterozygosity and signs of inbreeding have prompted proposals for genetic restoration through translocation from Mexican populations, alongside wildlife underpasses and brush regeneration. The Texas case is studied closely because it illustrates how a wide-ranging, globally secure species can teeter locally, and because the recovery tools tested here inform edge-of-range conservation elsewhere.