Instagram: @vgfisher
It's quite a journey to get to the Pantanal. First, we flew to Sao Paolo, then took another two-and-a-half-hour flight to the southwestern city of Cuiabá, and finally, hired a private driver for a several-hour drive on the Transpantaneira. This is the only road that penetrates deep into the vast area of the Pantanal. The next morning, at 7:30 AM, we had already finished breakfast and the four of us and our guide were boarding our small aluminum motorboat. Soon thereafter, we saw a few boats idling in front of something on shore. Once we got close enough, we realized we were seeing a jaguar!
The jaguar mostly ignored the people sitting in the boats and just went about its business looking for prey, etc. Every once in a while, she did look at us for a brief moment.
We watched her for about ten minutes before she disappeared into the brush. I say we watched "her" because the guides know most of the jaguars that live in these waterways, and they knew this particular jaguar. They also know which other jaguars are her children, and in some cases, by which father!
Less than a half hour later, we spotted another jaguar. The guides know most of the jaguars by sight because of a cooperative jaguar identification project being run by lodges and guides with some assistance from Pantera, a worldwide big cat conservation organization. This project tracks the health of the individuals and the overall population. They told us this jaguar is a female. She was working her way down to the water.
Each time a jaguar disappeared, we had to make a decision of whether to stay and hope they reemerge somewhere nearby or go on looking for other jaguars. In this case, we decided to try looking elsewhere.
Panthera.org, a group dedicated to preserving the few remaining big cat species on earth, provides some support to the jaguar conservation in the Pantanal.
Last year, the Pantanal suffered huge wildfires. This year, there was not as much rain as usual during the rainy season. This is really sad for all the animals in the area, as some were killed by the wildfires, and others were forced to leave their home territories. The river basin still has water, but any significant distance in any direction is dry and dusty. In this photo, some of her claws are visible.
A couple of hours later, we found this jaguar resting under a tree. This is a male, and he has a collar to allow his movements to be tracked. This is part of a program to try to protect jaguars and find ways for jaguars and ranchers to coexist.
Almost every jaguar we saw went in the water at one time or another. They showed no hesitation to enter the water. They're excellent swimmers. Much of their food is caimans (similar to alligators), which they find along the water's edge.
We spent a lot of time just sitting in front of this jaguar.
The longer we stayed, the more comfortable it got.
Unfortunately, ranchers don't have the same view of a majestic, threatened animal that visitors have. Ranchers see jaguars as a threat to livestock, so they often kill jaguars. It is legal to kill jaguars in Brazil. I can understand the ranchers' need to protect their livelihood, but it still feels tragic to kill something so rare and beautiful. There is so little of the wild world left these days.
One hopeful program is adding one or a few water buffalo to a herd of cows. Water buffalo serve as a deterrent to jaguars.
This post is a first blast of nothing but jaguar photos, all from our first day on the water.
Later, we'll have a cormorant eating its fish, colorful birds, great river otters, and more jaguars.
