Celebrate this year with an exclusive Witte Museum ornament, our dear Ollie the Ocelot! Presented in a beautiful gift box.
Ocelots once roamed from the Rio Grande Valley along the Texas-Mexico border to the piney woods of East Texas. Today, they are listed as an endangered species in the U.S. and Texas, with a population estimated between 80 and 120 individuals in only two counties in the Valley.
Ocelots prefer to live in thick, undisturbed brush and prey on a variety of small mammals and birds, but also fish, amphibians and reptiles. Females will den in the densest part of the brush, a hollow tree or rocky bluff and generally give birth to two kittens in the fall.
Habitat destruction and fragmentation have led to low populations numbers. Landowners and government entities are working to conserve valuable ocelot habitat as well as link pockets of suitable habitat across the landscape.
Visit the McLean Family Texas Wild Gallery to learn more about the ocelot and the many wildlife species found in Texas.