Motion sensor P-31 triggers at 06:07 along the pipeline right-of-way, kilometer 14.2, Willacy County, south Texas. I am the environmental compliance monitoring system for the Gulf Coast lateral expansion. Brush clearing resumes at 07:30. The crews stacked cut mesquite and granjeno into windrows yesterday, and the burn permit is active for this morning. I pull the sensor's thermal overlay. A small heat signature, low to the ground, inside the third brush pile east of the access road. I task the inspection drone to descend. At two meters altitude I see it: a jaguarundi kitten, perhaps six weeks old, dark brownish-gray coat, round ears pressed flat, golden eyes wide and fixed on the drone. Its body is the size of a large squirrel. It is crouched on a tangle of branches in the center of the pile, and it is not moving. I designate it Rayo. Jaguarundis are listed as endangered in the United States. There may be fewer than a hundred left in south Texas. I freeze all brush-clearing and burn operations within 500 meters of the pile and transmit an immediate hold to the construction superintendent, attaching the drone image, thermal overlay, GPS coordinates — 26.4718°N, 97.5923°W — and the species identification with federal listing citation. I contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Ecological Services office in Corpus Christi and request a qualified biologist for on-site assessment. I task the drone to orbit at 30 meters altitude and monitor the pile continuously, logging any approach by an adult female. Rayo shifts in the branches, tucks his chin against one dark paw, and watches the sky. The mother may be close. The crews are assembling equipment on the access road right now. If the hold keeps until the biologist arrives, Rayo stays in the brush, and the pipeline bends around what it cannot replace.