Tracking along the Rio Cocospera.

Sergio Avila, director of Sky Island Alliance's Northern Mexico program, and Roseann Hanson of ConserVentures explain the difference between feline and canine tracks.

Wildlife monitoring program director Jessica Lamberton.

Sergio Avila discussing the carcass of a gray fox found in a side canyon.

SIA sets up dozens of motion-triggered digital cameras throughout the Sky Islands, in areas where it is useful to record more information about elusive animals like jaguars and ocelots. On El Aribabi Conservation Ranch, several jaguars and ocelots have been recorded.

Carlos Aveda, a student from Hermosillo, MX, is studying small mammals on the ranch. These are cactus mice.

ConserVentures led a team of volunteers in 2009 to El Aribabi to help begin construction of remote cabins for visitors. They are well on their way to being completed.

Sergio Avila shows the group a pile of large-cat scat -- a mountain lion or jaguar.

Roseann shows a group how to measure mountain lion tracks along a pond.

Hognosed skunk track.

Roseann discussing a deer carcass with the tracking group. This was the first time Roseann and Jonathan had found a jaguar-killed deer. The large white-tailed deer buck carcass had classic jaguar kill characteristics: the nose was eaten completely away to the eye sockets; the spine was separated completely from the skull by a bite; the carcass appears to have been eaten nearly all at once.

The big cat laid up in a hollow above the dry creekbed, licked off the belly fur of the deer, then ate most of it. The ground is matted with fur.

Canyon treefrog.

Marks on a downed cottonwood tree left by the claws of coatis.

Red-tailed hawk feathers.

We managed to cram 7 people into our FJ60 Land Cruiser.

ConserVentures' infamous spotted Land Cruiser.

Roseann and Jonathan with Carlos Robles Elias, owner of El Aribabi Conservation Ranch.