A thick humidity lingers during most seasons in South Texas. Spiny hackberry, blackbrush, and other thorny plants create dense walls of vegetation. The Texas sun shines often, dousing the hundreds of thousands of acres of ranchland in near-white light. But upon closer look, one might catch a flash of a golden fur coat, spotted with black blotches and bands or big, luminous eyes peeking between a thicket of shrubland. These wild cats are ocelots—and they’re among the only two small populations remaining in the entire nation.
