Over-hunting is the main issue. For these human accessories it takes about twelve to thirty pelts to make one coat. Our government and other governments have tried to pass laws to halt the decreasing population of the ocelot. Environmentalists have tried to set up wildlife refuges in Texas so that ocelots can breed without being disturbed. The farmers say that they need the land for farming, so they are against the protective law.
Environmentalists are for the law, so is the government.
However, this has not stopped the hunters who have decimated the ocelot population nearly to extinction. The US Fish and Wildlife Services and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department have been working for several years to stop the decrease in the wildlife population. The environmentalists have also set assigned lands, often called islands, but the ocelots continue to revert to their old niche and habitat. They are also stranded there at times and cannot reproduce with others, so inbreeding causes great birth defects. Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge near Brownsville is now set up to protect them.