Ocelot_RevolucionVerde_Sternberg_Mitch_AlamoTX_31May2022_Reel4110.mp3

Mitch Sternberg [00:00:00] There are two populations in Texas from the total of 50 to 80 ocelots that we have in Texas, and both populations are highly inbred.

Mitch Sternberg [00:00:10] Although more is made of it in the literature about Laguna due to its small size, and being close to urban development, but each is inbred. And the science is very clear on this.

Mitch Sternberg [00:00:23] And that, that happens due to that, again, the removal of habitat, therefore shrinking the size of the area that's available for ocelots, and isolating the two populations from one another so that there's not interbreeding between them.

Mitch Sternberg [00:00:37] And then on a larger scale, the habitat wasn't just lost on the U.S. side. Our neighboring state to the south is Tamaulipas, Mexico. And although the area of the Rio Grande Valley began to be populated in 1710, 1712, 1719, it wasn't until mechanized agriculture took over in this area in the 1930s that vegetation was cleared here.

Mitch Sternberg [00:01:07] But in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas, by the '60s to the '70s, agricultural cooperatives were really taking a foothold. And a lot of the habitat was cleared there in a time that was termed the Revolucion Verde, or the Green Revolution. And that term wasn't as much as we might think of it in modern terminology nowadays, such as like calling something, "greening the landscape". Right? In other words, putting native plants back on it. The "green" was actually referencing the crops that were being planted.

Mitch Sternberg [00:01:45] So there was huge infrastructure projects on both sides of the Rio Grande Valley from the '30s to the '60s and '70s, putting in ditches to run water away, and canals to bring water to all of these new crops.

Mitch Sternberg [00:02:00] And so the removal of that habitat in Tamaulipas cut off the Texas populations from the Mexican populations and vice versa.

Mitch Sternberg [00:02:09] So, the genetics, though, thankfully, has not been exhibited in deformities or things like we've seen with other species like the Florida panther, with them becoming so inbred at one point that they had physical deformities that were very clearly obvious, like tails that were bent, literally, the, the vertebrae in the bone were growing wrong. There were males that weren't able to take on adult characteristics and couldn't breed.

Mitch Sternberg [00:02:42] So thankfully, we've not seen that in the Texas populations. But, we do know just based on the genetics that they're very inbred.

Mitch Sternberg [00:02:49] So just to recap, our more modern issues are really the lack of habitat, the inability for ocelots to move across the landscape due to vehicles, and genetics.