As solar development expands across the West, we’re asking a key question: How can governments and companies develop renewable energy projects while protecting biodiversity and keeping wildlife connected?

 To help answer that question, we’re leading novel research efforts to understand how wildlife interact with utility-scale solar projects.

After two years of GPS collar data on more than 70 pronghorn in New Mexico and Arizona, our early findings are providing valuable insights into relationships between pronghorn, solar development, and the specific habitat variables that dictate pronghorn habitat use around solar facilities.

As our research continues, we’ll use these findings to inform future monitoring protocols and design standards for solar projects across the West.

From the highlands of Sonora to the borderlands of Arizona, an inspiring conservation effort is taking shape – one that could help jaguars reclaim their home in the U.S.

Once roaming from Argentina to Arizona, human development and persecution pushed jaguars out of the U.S. Today, their return is threatened not only by roads and habitat loss, but by the looming expansion of the U.S.-Mexico border wall. That’s why we have focused on protecting habitat corridors that connect breeding areas both within Sonora and into the species’ historic range in the U.S. Southwest through a jaguar corridor, all while working toward wildlife crossings at the border wall.

Over the last two and a half decades, efforts to protect jaguars in Sonora have increased significantly, with more protected surface and outreach efforts than ever before. Researchers at the University of Arizona confirmed five jaguar sightings in Arizona this summer alone. Our camera traps also captured what appears to be a female jaguar near Sonora’s capital, Hermosillo, closer to the city than ever recorded.

This progress is an incredible step toward rewilding jaguars in the borderlands, but their populations are still fragile and threatened. With 95% of Mexico’s land held privately or communally, we are forging deep partnerships with local landowners to continue restoring connectivity. In 2024, Sonora passed a landmark law creating legal and economic incentives for voluntary land protection, including a new conservation mechanism akin to easements known as the Real Right of Conservation.

Shortly afterward, we received a grant to support our work with landowners and reap the benefits of this new policy. We are now working with ranchers in regions like Sahuaripa and Bacoachi to protect 4,450 acres under voluntary conservation within the jaguar corridor.

We’re also tackling one of the greatest modern threats to jaguar movement: highways. The new grant will also allow us to advocate for Sonora’s first wildlife overpass spanning a dangerous stretch of Highway 2, where vehicle collisions threaten not just jaguars, but many species.

This growing corridor, built ranch by ranch, crossing by crossing, border by border, offers a blueprint for binational conservation.

Together, with local communities, researchers, and policymakers, we’re ensuring jaguars have a way forward – across borders, beyond barriers, and into a wilder future.