Ocelot_CartelWars_Tewes_Mike_KingsvilleTX_29June2023_Reel4159.mp3

Mike Tewes [00:00:00] We'd found the perfect place to translocate ocelots.

Mike Tewes [00:00:03] It's the Los Ebanos Ranch in Mexico. Eleven thousand acre ranch. It had 34 ocelots on it, and at the edge of the population, we eventually estimated to be over 500 ocelots.

Mike Tewes [00:00:17] But the second weekend of February 2010 was when a lot of that, the drug war broke out. It was when, it's my understanding, the Zeta group broke away from the Gulf cartel.

Mike Tewes [00:00:29] My student, Arturo Caso, was traveling down there that weekend to go to a study site. He went to these towns - Sota la Marina - along the coast, and all these little towns on that weekend had all the lights turned off.

Mike Tewes [00:00:40] That's when all this explosion of violence broke out and people were being killed that weekend, and ever since, actually.

Mike Tewes [00:00:48] But intensive war broke out, which ended up to where ranchers left their ranches. I quit working in Mexico after that. They killed the ranch owner right next to our research ranch. And many people were killed.

Mike Tewes [00:01:05] And I heard some statistic: over time, it was like 6000 people were eventually murdered.

Mike Tewes [00:01:11] But that slowed translocation. It just become difficult politically, and violence.