Jaguars haven’t made it to Colorado yet, unless you count the fat wallets in Aspen, Telluride and Cherry Creek. But in the Four Corners the big, fast predators with big, sharp claws are local news this week.

In its local news section, the Cortez Journal has an Associated Press story about three jaguars spotted in southern Arizona and the hopes of conservationist to restore the species that once roamed Arizona and New Mexico.

Habitat loss and predator control were thought to be the writers of the last chapter of that history.

The AP’s Astrid Galvan reported:

Recovery efforts have faced pushback from all sides, including livestock owners who sued the Fish and Wildlife Service when it set aside nearly 1,200 square miles along the border as habitat for the conservation of jaguars in 2014.

“There are all these political issues, but when you have good plan, coexistent techniques that really work, I think there’s a path toward success,” Rob Peters of Defenders of Wildlife told Galvan.

If you have a chicken coop on the Ute Mountain Reservation, then maybe more predators is not your idea of success.

It gets more political.

The idea is to spawn the population south of Interstate 10, but that’s getting mighty close to President Trump’s border wall that Mexico is supposed to pay for.

The three jaguars caught on trail cams were about 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, and wildlife experts think their best bet of re-establishing the American population of predators is to focus on areas on the Mexico side. Jaguars will migrate north, they think.

“The border wall would be an absolute disaster,” Peter said. “If it’s completed with pedestrian throughout jaguar corridors, it would completely preclude the option of jaguars getting to the United States on their own.”

That’s not the only way Trump can kill the deal.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposed plan for the jags would cost $56 million over five years and $605 million through 2066, the AP reported.

Unless he thinks it’s a luxury car plant, Trump isn’t likely to want to pay up.