Episode Transcript
[00:00:07] Speaker A: It's day seven of the trip, and I'm back on our boat for a safari on the Picuri river. The early morning air was thick with heat, but we did not care. From the speed of our boat and the rush of other boats heading in the same direction, we were on our way to something exciting.
At the river's bend, we all came to a halt out of the vegetation. A gorgeous female jaguar stepped into view. From our jaguar field guide, we learned that we were watching Zhaju, a seven year old female who's also the daughter of the current matriarch of the area, Patricia. Having watched countless cats in the wild, I easily deduced that Zhaju was hungry and looking for a meal.
She moved upriver while scanning the water's edge, occasionally hopping in the water to search through thick water hyacinths. She was looking for her two favorite prey, cayman and Capibara. Was I going to get the shot of a lifetime? A jaguar launching herself off the riverbank into the water to catch a potential meal. Oh, my mind was reeling.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Oh, there she is. There she is.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: There she is.
We stayed with Jaju for at least 30 minutes as she went about her morning hunt while we humans jockeyed for the best viewing possession.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: She's coming right there.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: She's like, right there.
Eventually, Zhaju turned back into the thick vegetation, disappearing from view.
Everyone in the boat was elated. The photographers scanned through their images to see if they captured the shot, while others talked amongst themselves, rehashing the exciting events that just unfolded.
Zhao Zhu was the third jaguar we had seen in a matter of 24 hours.
Why were we able to observe her hunting along the riverbank when jaguars in almost all other parts of their range are skittish and avoid humans at all costs? I had spent countless hours researching Panzano's wildlife before arriving in country and had learned so much from my first week in Brazil. But I still had so many questions about jaguars.
How did jaguars in Porter Joffrey become so habituated to people?
Considering the number of cats we had seen in such a short period of time in a relatively small area, their territories had to have immense overlap. What were their interactions like with each other, and were they under threat in Brazil?
Luckily, all of my hosts knew how much I loved meeting conservationists around the globe and were aware of my involvement with our AI big cat project at the wild source. This led to a serendipitous meeting on our mothership. During an afternoon siesta, Fred rang the ship's bell, the signal for us to come to the lounge. I opened the door, and there stood an american woman at the front of the room loading up a presentation.
She appeared to be around my age, and in case you're wondering, I'm in my early 30s with blonde hair tied back into a bun under a hat that read Jaguar ID project.
Once everyone arrived, we dispersed among the couches, and our visitor introduced herself. Abby Martin, founder of the Jaguar identification project.
We spent the next hour learning about Brazil's jaguars with a focus on the population we had been watching for the past couple of days in the northern Pontineal.
Since we had just met, I didn't want to be a weirdo and ask Abby to mic up for a full interview on the spot. So I spent some time getting to know her and told her about rewildology in our work at the wild source. We made plans to record a full interview once we both returned to the US. We kept that promise, and I was able to ask her all of my burning questions.
To set the stage for the rest of the discussion, I asked Abby to share her story. How in the world did she end up in the ponternal studying jaguars?
[00:04:45] Speaker B: So sophomore year, I did a course called, and, you know, we were studying know Darwin, and then we went to the Galapagos. We actually got to see speciation through isolation and got to see these things, and that was our lab credit. And then I learned that there's something called a naturalist. And I completely changed my major. I went from pre vet to zoology because I thought it would be way cooler to be traveling the world talking about wildlife than being in a vet clinic around sick and dying animals. Senior year, I did a course called Plants responses to global change, which our professor chose Brazil as the case study because whatever Brazil does with the Amazon will affect our climate, our global climate. So in class, we studied from micro to macro about what's going to happen as the temperature increases, mainly focusing on Amazon, Sahado, which is brazilian savannah, and then lastly pancanal, which is the world's largest wetland. So then we went to Brazil and we started in Sahado, and then we went to Amazon, and our last stop was pontanal, and I had taken ornithology that same year, so I was really into birding. And so I had a birding list going the whole trip. And when I got to know, I did my pontineal bird list, and I was right next to the guide, like, what is that bird? Wrote down the name. What's that bird? Wrote down the name. In three nights, I had like, 126 bird species, which is a lot of birds. Just, for example, the Virgin Islands, we only have 140 birds where. That's where I live now. So in comparison, in three nights, I saw the same amount of birds that exist on St. John in the national park there. So I was just like, whoa, this place is super cool. I was graduating. I knew I wanted to go to another country. I wanted to learn another language, and I was really bad at learning languages in classes, so I knew I needed to go to these places. So I was either going to go somewhere like Ecuador or Brazil, and I didn't even know where I was in comparison to Pontinella at the time.
I was on the Transpontanera highway, and I was at Aradis lodge, which is only about 30 miles down the road. No one was talking about jaguars. I didn't know that this was, like, the gateway into jaguar land. I had no idea. No one wasn't the topic. But on one of our night safaris, we did see an oslot, and that was one of my favorite cats at the time. So I was, like, super excited about that. I went back home. I worked as an avian field technician for a PhD student in Maine for a few months, but I couldn't stop thinking about Pontinell, so I reached out to my guide, and I was like, is there any volunteering going on out there? Does anyone need an english speaking biologist? And he actually knew a guy who does bring biologists down, and he has a floating houseboat, which they call flotels, and they go on these jaguar excursions. And I was like, well, that sounds amazing. I would love to do that. So I talked to him, and he knew the university I went to. He knew I had a really good science background, but unfortunately, he wanted me to pay $60 a day to go volunteer for him. And I was like, that's not. I can't afford that. It's really unfortunate. A few weeks later, he contacted me, and he's just like, how long will you come if it was free? And I was like, I'll come as long as you need me. So he's like, all right, so you can be here in August. We'll need you for three months. So I literally just packed my bags and headed down to the Pontinell. I remember calling my mom, and she was just like, what?
Yeah, so that's how I got there.
I guess in the end it was mainly because of birding, but, yeah, that's how I landed in the Pontinell. I was a volunteer, English speaking jaguar biologist on a floating houseboat for three months.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Let's talk about this project then.
How did the jaguar identification project come to it? Was it already established before you? And like you said earlier, it sounded like there was a need to understand these cats in this amazing ecosystem. So maybe give us a little bit more info. How did Jip come to be?
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah, so, like I mentioned, I went down there as a volunteer jaguar biologist, and my job for this lodge was to go out in the boats with the tourists and kind of give them a little bit more of a scientific background of what they're seeing.
Also, like many big cats or any spotted animals, zebras, giraffes, they have a pattern, and they're born with it, and it never changes. So jaguars are one of those species. It's like a fingerprint. And so we've been identifying jaguars since the tourism started in that region in 2004. And so they actually did have something going on with this identification idea before. And my job was to kind of just fill that in some more. But what I had seen being down there and being a scientist, this information was only available to this one lodge in this one place. But everybody was watching these same cats. It's not a private ranch. It's not a private reserve. It's open to the public. It's a state park. And I just am a strong believer that information doesn't exist in isolation.
So I proposed the idea of putting together a guide, a book, and we can even call it the company's jaguar guide. But they didn't like it. They wanted to keep it their own thing. And I was like, all right. And then the next year, they didn't invite me back. And I was really sad about that, because at this point in three months, I saw, like, 53 different cats. I had over 500 hours of watching wild jaguars. I saw Patricia and her mom and her brother George together as a family, and I watched them separate and try to figure out their own things in that first year. And I'd see George and Patricia see each other on the river and kind of be like, who are you? And then they would meet each other and just jump up and hug each other and roll around like, oh, there you are. I've been looking for you. And I really started to have a connection with these cats, and I saw that if I could have this connection, everybody can and everyone should be able to. So I actually found another way to come back, and that was working as a guide, because I had learned Portuguese, and I drive boats, so I'm a boat captain, so I can work as a guide and drive boats. And that was going to be my way of continuing this project and finding a way down there to be able to follow these cats. And I did that for 2015.
I officially started the Jaguar ID project and made a website and a Facebook. I don't think we had Instagram yet then, but I started playing with this idea and I made a book and I was like, well, I'll put these around places. Maybe people will like them. They won't. And actually, a lot of people didn't like them at first.
I think I had to work really hard to get accepted. I'm female in a very cowboy macho world, driving a boat, naming their jaguars. They were kind of like, who is this girl?
But then I kept coming back and I kept showing up, and I think they really started to accept me and appreciate my effort and knew that I wasn't there to take anything of theirs. I was really just trying to help them and show the world how incredible the pontinal is. And sometimes we need something like the jaguar or the lion or the tiger to make people realize how special this place was. So that was really know. Jaguars are amazing. I love them. I was not like that weird, crazy cat kid growing like I liked cats. They were cool. But it wasn't like my dream goal to work with jaguars. But I saw an opportunity to use the jaguar as a tool to bring more awareness to the pontanal, but also a unique opportunity to understand better this species that is kind of like this mysterious cat in comparison to the other big cats. Like, we know a lot about lions and tigers and leopards. We don't know so much about social dynamics of jaguars. We don't know much about mating behaviors of jaguars. But here we have this opportunity to learn it. And I think that's what's so unique about jaguar Id project is that over time we can see all these really cool behaviors and social dynamics that in the past were know jaguars are solitary cats. And what we see down there is maybe not so solitary, but is that because they're changing their behavior, or is it because we just never had an opportunity to really kind of look into the window of the life of the jaguar, which is what the encounter Sasagua this is the meeting of the waters park is offering us.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Since Abby had been visiting and working in the panzana for over ten years, I wanted to see this important wetland through her eyes and learn why this was a paradise for jaguars.
Why is this place so special? What is this ecosystem? Why is it so important? And then also, what are the top conservation issues that you've seen, especially in all of your years that you've been?
[00:14:52] Speaker B: You know, the pontanal is a really unique ecosystem. When the rains come off the Andes and they don't flood into the Amazon river basin, they puddle up in the middle of the continent, and they form the pontanal, and it gradually drains through the region. And every year it does this cycle, so it floods and then it dries and it floods and it dries. So it's kind of like the beating heart of Brazil. Amazon is the lungs, cleans the airs and everything, and then the freshwater heart, the pulsation that happens in the pontanal, and this creates this magical wildlife hotspot. And jaguars, which most people don't know are aquatic, they're one of the most aquatic cats. And so this is kind of like a refuge for jaguars. So it's like the perfect ecosystem for them. It's tons of food, tons of rivers for them to hunt along. So in hand, it's a hotspot for jaguar conservation, but also a hotspot for jaguar ecotourism, which 20 years ago, there was no place to go to photograph jaguars. And now today, as you know, you go on the river, you can see five, six jaguars in one day, which is really unique and really cool.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Abby also further elaborated on the top threats touched upon in part two of this series.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: So when this water is flooding through the region, it starts in the north of the Pontinalle and moves south. So whatever happens, it's not necessarily issues that are happening inside the Pontinall, it's issues that are happening outside the pontinall. First one is whatever happens in Cejado, the savannahs, affects the pontanal. So that's where most of the deforestation is happening. Now in Brazil, it's, like, skyrocketing in comparison to Amazon. We hear a lot about the Amazon because that's what we know of. But Sahado, I think, is like, I saw something today. It was like 600% increase in deforestation this year, like, crazy numbers. And so they're putting in a lot of these monocultures and everything that they spray on these crops to grow them. When it rains, it floods into the pontineal, and the northern patinal is the first barrier. So it's kind of like a filtration system. So the northern patanal, we're going to see the effects before we see in the south. Also, Matagoso and Mathagoso Sewell are the states where the pontanal exists. In Brazil, 80% of pontanal exists in these two states. They used to be one state, and the state made a law where you cannot put up dikes and drain the water to grow monocultures. In the pontanal, this is a law, but the state divided, and Matagrosa de soul didn't follow those same rules. So they're actually starting to bring soy into the south of Pontanal. So they're starting to drain parts of the southern, and it's kind of getting smaller because they're draining it and keeping it from flooding so that they can grow these crops. There's a lot of fighting against it. They don't think the pontanal is a place for soy, but it is happening because the land is so cheap to buy there. So that's a huge problem. But also what we're seeing happening in the deforestation of Amazon. These flying rivers, I don't know if you've heard of them before, but basically, when the water evaporates in the Amazon, it creates these clouds. And it's kind of like a river system where the clouds move over the continent of South America and then rains in the south. These flying rivers really aren't happening as much anymore. And we can see the effects in the not. We're not getting those floods like we used to. It's not flooding. It's not raining as much, we're not receiving as much water. And this is because of what's happening outside the. And pontinal is a really difficult region to study because of these constant fluctuations of dry and wet. But also, when you look at the long term scheme of the, like, history of the water, you have these fluctuation of seven years of really good flooding years. And then you'll have seven years of really dry, dry seasons. So you have a fluctuation within the fluctuation. And basically what scientists are seeing is whenever the Paraguay river, which is the main river that floods, is like the main vein that floods the pontanal, when that river is below 4 meters, we see fires. We see, like, drastic changes in Pontinell, just like we saw this year in 2000 and 22,021. So the importance of the Paraguay river is huge for the life of the Pontanao. And what they want to do is build these micro dams along the Paraguay river to harvest hydroelectric energy. And this really is kind of scary to think about. If we start to cut off these major flooding, major river sources, what's really going to happen to the Pontanal the next 2030 years? Some climate analysis say that by 2030, the world's largest wetland will no longer be a wetland. That's less than ten years from now. That's kind of scary for me to think about. But also seeing how many fires and things have changed in the last, just ten years, it's becoming more and more like a reality.
It's really sad. But.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: The only male we saw, Ozado, nearly lost his life in 2020 due to the raging infernos that scorched the pontanal.
When we first spotted Ozado, I immediately noticed he had a collar on, and I wondered why. Was he part of a jaguar study or something else?
In his effort to escape the flames engulfing his home, Ozado ran across burning peat, resulting in third degree burns on all four of his paws. He could barely move.
On September 11, 2023 year old Ozado was rescued by conservationists and veterinarians to treat his extensive wounds.
He was saved just in time as he was found dehydrated and hungry, unable to take care of himself with his battered paws.
For the next month, the teen took care of Ozado. As he healed, he was fitted with a GPS collar so that the teen could track his progress. And on October 20, he was released back to the same location where he was rescued.
Ozado's release was a victory for both jaguars and the Pantano. The reins had returned to the region the same week he was let go.
We saw Ozado a total of three times, two of which were in the same place. He found a nice cozy spot underneath the tree root, just out of the waters of the Kuricho Negro. One morning, we even found him with the leftover remains of a spectacle. Cayman.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: So everybody looked to the left of his face.
He was one fed, happy, healthy jaguar.
Going back to my interview with Abby, I finally got to ask the question that had been burning in the back of my mind since I learned about meeting of the waters jaguars.
How did this population of cats become so habituated to people?
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Tourism started in the early 2000s, but people have always lived in Porto Joffrey, mainly fishermen. It's like a fishing community. When people go there, they're like, oh, I'm going to go. They think it's a town. Like they rent a car. They're like, oh, let's get some fuel in Porter Joffrey. He's like, no, there's nothing there. There's some lodges, and it's just access to the river. It's where the Transpontanera highway ends, and that's it. And there's this family of fishermen that always lived there, and they catch fish for a living and to provide for their families. And so they were the ones that led us there. People started wildlife viewing in South America, became more famous. People wanted to see jaguars. People are always looking for this place. Where can we see and guarantee these jaguars? This company that I started with, they were the ones that started an ecotourism for jaguars there. He found the fishermen who brought him. I want to see a jaguar. I can bring you to see a jaguar. So in five days, they saw a jaguar every single day. And this was in 2003, 2004. And this was just mind blowing.
This guy knew this has got potential.
So over 20 years, maybe that one female was the one that they were seeing every day, because the fishermen would see him, she would see him. They would never bother each other. The fishermen didn't care about the jaguars. Maybe every once in a while they would throw them a fish, which is, you can't feed wildlife in Brazil or you shouldn't feed predators, but they would. And so that female would learn, like, hey, the boat. It's some threat. I'm going to continue my thing. Maybe they're going to throw me some food, so maybe I'll just sit here. And so people started taking pictures. And then that female had cubs, and she would bring her cubs out to the water's edge. And it's really important to remember that this only happens during the dry season. And where do these jaguars go during the wet season? I would love to know, because we don't see them. When we monitor the rivers in the wet season, we don't see those individuals. We don't see Madriz or Patricia in the spots where we see them all the time. They go somewhere else. But during the dry season, they all congregate along the water's edge. And I think it's just this generation from generation of females who have became habituated and taught their clubs to be relaxed around the boats. We really try. There's no rangers, there's no real rules. But we've all agreed on, the industry has agreed on a set of practices on how to behave around the jaguars so we don't destroy this unique opportunity, try to give them distance. We're not harassing, we're not chasing. Luckily, if the jaguar wants to leave, we're stuck in the river, so we can't go after them. So they just leave.
Which brings me back to my a. She's a star. Even her cub, Marcella, I cannot wait to see her next year because she literally will just be walking, walking, walking, and then just turn and let everyone just pose perfectly. She'll come out on the tree and just pose. Look at everybody. Like, turn her head. Everyone get a picture.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Okay, great.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: That's exactly what she did.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Like, straight kardashian model level.
I'm hot, like, 800 milliliter lens right now.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: And that's really individuals that are like that. There's certain individuals that I've been watching for ten years who just do not like more than two boats, even, like, when you see them with one boat, they're like, I don't really want to stay here with you, but I guess I will. But if you have house cats, you know, you've got that really lovey one that rubs up against everyone that doesn't know and the other one that hides under the bed as soon as a new person comes in, the like, cats are all the same big and know. You can see that a lot in the jaguars. But, like, Madroza, for example, she was amazing in the beginning of the season with her new cub ami and everything. And unfortunately, there was that infanticide where Forrest Arrow had killed her cub. Her behavior changed completely. She did not want to be seen. She was literally, when we would find her hunting, she would, like, duke out the boats. She would be walking. She'd go into a bush, and if you weren't paying attention, she would go directly up the hill, over the other side of the river and try to cross the river to escape us. And everyone's waiting on that other side of the bush thinking that she's going to come out. But then if someone saw her turn a little bit, she's like, oh, she went over there. So she didn't want to be seen. After she lost her cub, she was, like, sad.
You could see it in her behavior that things were different. So it's really cool how intelligent these cats are and how unique and personalized each one's behavior is. They all have personalities. And that's why I think Jaguar D project has gotten a lot more support over the years is because you can read this book, and you can learn about this cat. You can learn his history. You can go and see her. You can meet these cats. Like, I had someone this year be like, I really want to see Juru. I've been following him through your stories and all your stuff for many years. I want to see this cat. Juru doesn't hang out in the main spot anymore, but I asked all the boat drivers, where was the last time we saw Juru? Blah, blah, blah. Got to this information down in the nick Rio. He was seen three days ago, eating a dead cow around this corner. Go down there and guess what? They went down there and they found him.
They were leaving, and he came out, and it made her dreams come true that she got to meet this famous jaguar. So that brings value to the species. People have connections with these individuals. It's hard for me to call them just an animal. They are like people to me sometimes.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: If an award existed, that crowd one individual as the planet's most gorgeous big cat, Madroza would be a multi year winner.
We spotted Madroza on the morning of day eight, just like a safari in Africa. We found a group of boats parked at a bend of the carisho Negro and parked in the water, hyacinths beside them to see what they were looking at.
There, on a tree overlooking the water, lay Madroza, the most gorgeous cat I've ever seen.
Her body was sleek and muscular, with deep amber eyes that seemed to glow in the reflection of the water. Kim Kardashian had nothing on this cat.
After watching Madroza for a while, something peculiar hit me about her behavior. Madroza seemed to be watching us. I've observed lions, leopards, cheetahs, and tigers in the wild, and they have a tendency of ignoring you once they've spotted your vehicle. But not Madroza. She lay on her tree, watching her admirers scramble for the best position to photograph her. She was clearly aware of us and slowly turned her head, looking at each individual boat.
After some time, she hopped down from her tree and slowly walked up the riverbank. Our boats scrambled to turn around and follow her. She then hopped up into another tree and watched us from her new perch. After about 15 minutes of making us humans do a boat dosy though, she hopped out of that tree and continued walking upstream, never leaving our sight. She then sat, watched us act like maniacs in the water, and slowly walked back to her original tree overlooking the water. Yes, such a cat thing to do.
Like a model working her Runway, Madroza knew what she was doing. Once she had settled back on her tree, we let her be and continued searching the park for more memorable wildlife sightings.
In my brief visit to meeting of the water state park, I learned a tremendous amount about jaguars.
I could only imagine how much I know about the species if I worked here for ten years. So I asked Abby, what all have you discovered about the Panzanaus jaguars in your decade of studying them?
[00:30:48] Speaker B: So right now we're actually working on a paper that's like investigating social dynamics and the importance of family. Because what it seems like know they say that they're solitary, territorial predators, but these guys, first of all, are not very solitary because solitary animals will defend their territory to the death. And we see way too many individuals in the crecia negro, which is like a football field long. In a given day, we can see five different cats, and maybe two of them are related. The other ones are not related. So why are these cats not fighting each other? Well, there's so much food available, there's so much space for them. And usually when we do see them mating, sometimes that's when we see fights. But if you look at the females, when a female has cubs, she has a male and a female cub. The male will stick around the area, but he needs to disperse because genetically he needs to get out of there because he can't mate with his mom or his sister. But the female cub will. Maybe she'll disperse, but typically she stays around. So we see, like, this network of relative females, and it's not a pride because they're not, like, hunting together, but they're very accepting of sharing this territory with each other.
Some of them are like, they'll just kind of show their dominance, and then they'll lay down next to each other. They'll just start hanging out, and it's just like, wait, what are they doing? They're just, like, chilling those females. Their cubs survive more than it seems. This is what we're trying to investigate is that females that don't have this big lineage of other females close by, they don't have as many cubs. They don't have as big as litters. Their litters don't survive as much as these females that have this big family network. So that's kind of interesting.
All this stuff that we're learning, we're not, like, taking DNA, we're not darting, we're not capturing. It's completely non invasive to the cat. We're just observing and just marking as much data as we can get with a camera. So that's what's really cool.
A lot of times the missing piece of the puzzle comes from a tourist. I'm like, why are they hanging out? And then someone sends me a picture. I was like, oh, that's because it's their mother or, like, their grandmother. So citizen science plays a huge role in connecting the dots into us understanding the dynamics, the social dynamics of the cats. So that's one really cool thing that we're learning, is that perhaps jaguars are more social. And then also another question that I'm thinking about is why? Well, the density is so high, they need to figure out a way to survive when the density is so high. You see this in parts of Africa with leopards, too. I guess I've been reading in the literature, is that the leopard's behavior can be much different in areas where they have a high population compared to an area where there is a low density. And of course, if there's a low density, they're not going to ever see each other, so why would they be social? So it makes sense that in an area where we have so many cats, we start to see more social behaviors. And another thing that is interesting is these male coalitions that we're seeing.
We have male jaguars that there's been four documented coalitions in the area since I started.
Two coalitions, or one was two brothers who stuck together for a really long time.
Another coalition are two cousins, the ones that are happening right now, which is one of Madroza's cubs and one of Jaju's cubs. They've teamed up, and then there's two coalitions of unrelated males. And why would unrelated males be hanging out with each other? And they're breeding males. They're adult males.
And that's another thing is are they teaming up because their density is so high that if they come together, they can kind of protect each other from all these other bigger males? So we're starting to see these really interesting things that are very similar to lions, like the infanticide that we saw this year. Infanticide has been documented in jaguars, but never like the textbook infanticide where the male kills a cub so he can mate with a female. We literally saw that with madrosa. Day one, she was with the cub.
They were playing like tug of war with anaconda. The next day, this male that came out of nowhere, we've never seen him before, is in the corner of the crease of Negro with her cub dead while mom is hunting. Two days later, she's mating with that male for three days, and then she comes back and is calling for the cub. The cub's obviously dead. She doesn't know that. So this is literally what textbooks say about why infanticide happens. And we got to see that documented in the past. What they've seen is they'll see in camera traps what they saw was a female who had killed another female's cub and had it in its mouth. And then they had found the remains of a baby jaguar with jaguar bite marks, kill marks. So we know that jaguars will kill other jaguars cubs, but we weren't sure. We don't know why exactly the female killed the other female's cub or what killed the other one. We know it happens, but now we know this idea of infanticide, especially what happens in leopards and lions, also is true for jaguars.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And on the coalition part are these young males are just dispersing, like 18 months years old males coming together in a coalition.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So Rio is about three and a half years old now, and Mana is a year younger than him. And it's so funny because Mana is, like double the size of Rio. Everyone that see him, they think it's a mating couple because Rio is much smaller than Mana, which is in. Mana's a year younger, and Rio is the dominant one. Rio is always. When they're hunting or moving, Rio is always in front, and then Mana's in the back. He's kind of like, yeah, we joke around that Mana's like the bodyguard, and Rio just does. He's like the brains, and Mano's just like, here. And they're just so adorable. And I really hope that next year they stick together. But the brothers who were brothers from Kira, they're related. They stuck together until they reached about four years, which is, like, for sure sexual maturity for jaguar males. And then one of the brothers just disappeared. But that one brother did have an eye problem where his eyes were like, kind of. We don't know if he just dispersed or if he didn't make it. But they broke up after they became sexually mature. So next year, Rio will be of that age where he will start mating. So it'll be interesting to see if these two stick together, because Mana is a whole year behind him, and he loves Rio. He's always coming up to Rio, laying on top of him, trying to groom him. And Rio the other day, he just, like, mana laid on top of him, and he, like, rabbit kicked him off him. He's like, dude, my.
And they were hunting together. Rio. I've never seen Mana kill anything, and I have no records of him killing anything. But Rio is an amazing know. He's the son of Madroza, so he's like, jumping off banks, going up trees, like, he's a really cool cat to watch. And the other day, they were hunting together, and Monica caught one of those guinea pigs, those small guinea pigs. And he picked it up and he showed it to us. I got it. He was surprised.
He was like, I caught something.
And we were watching them sleeping.
Mana saw Cayman in perfect. Cayman was facing the right direction. Perfect. On the bank. We're all like, oh, he's going to jump. He's going to attempt, and he's like, getting all ready. He's going to do it. And then he just looks at Rio like, it's over here, it's over here, come on. And Rio's sleeping. He's just like passed out. And Mana doesn't jump. He doesn't even go after the cayman. He's just staring at it and then looking at Rio and staring at it like, oh, I don't know, can you just wake up and do your thing? And then the Cayman disappeared. But it was like, really? It's really fun to watch these two.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I'm just visualizing it right now.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: That is incredible. It is really cool.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: You've also said a little bit about how they seem to be way more social than previously anticipated or whatever was documented, quote unquote, before. Is there anything else that has surprised you about them that's just coming to light and, yeah, I would love to hear that.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: Besides these social behaviors, not just necessarily the coalitions, but just like how tolerable these big dominant males that aren't having that, they don't have a coalition. What's surprising to me is from one week in one week towards the end of the season, every day I saw a different dominant male in the same area.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Really?
[00:40:23] Speaker B: This is crazy.
Male jaguars can get up nearly up to 350 pounds in the pontinali. They're the largest of the species. They're huge. And each day I go into the creation Negro and I'm like, that's not Donald who was there before, it's Inca. The next day is Rosado and Bernard, and every day there was a different male in one week. And I was like, this is crazy.
This doesn't foul territorial behavior.
So, yeah, I think that's another thing, is just like, they're clearly, and then when you start to map out the females territories, they're the ones that are territorial. You never see Madroza outside of the lower three brothers and the creation euro. I don't have a single data point of her down by the ahumbada, which is literally right around the know. But Patricia, Patricia, she's got a huge home range tea. She never leaves the quaba. And a little part of the three brothers, the females, you can see territories and they kind of border other females or they don't leave, whereas the males is just a mess. There's no ways people are like, oh, make a map of everybody. I'm like, no, because it'll just be all on top of each other.
[00:41:49] Speaker A: It won't be black from all the layers of people.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Heck, yeah.
I think that's some cool stuff that we're learning. And I'm talking to other researchers in Costa Rica. They're starting to map out similar things because they've been able to follow families long enough. And then see these on camera trap. Mainly, this is all on camera trap, but they'll set up camera traps next to the turtles that they kill. In a single turtle kill, you'll have five, six jaguars that aren't related, sharing a prey, which is just like, wait, what?
[00:42:31] Speaker A: Nama conservation?
[00:42:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it is nama. Yeah, it has to be. It's one. The Santa Rosa Park National park.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Like up in Guanacoste.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Totally had them on.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Nice.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: That was actually my first, ironically, my first jaguar episode was about Costa Rica.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Which is the funniest thing. But, yes, we talked about that, too.
I went to Costa Rica for a month. I saw something on big Cat week about Costa Rica, and I was like, oh, I got to go there. I got to find a jaguar there. I spent a month looking for Jaguars there. I found tracks. They went to all these spots, but it was really. And finally I got in touch with these guys, and I actually had a meeting with them last year because they saw something that we posted on Instagram about.
We had, like five jaguars all laying next to each other. They were like, well, we're seeing things that are very similar. What's happening? It's like maybe we're finally catching up to what it actually is. And jaguars, we have the ability to now see them and they're not being persecuted as much. Jaguars were hunted nearly to extinction in the, because of their fur, and now they're coming back and we can watch them better.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: What is the top threats that I guess maybe specific in Brazil and maybe the ecosystems that you work, but also maybe as a whole, what is the species dealing with that we're working to overcome to make sure that they're still.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Here as a species as a whole, they exist in 18 different countries, so it's hard to kind of target into one area because every country has their different rules or laws. Obviously, jaguars don't know those. They don't follow the borders, so it's kind of difficult to say something for all of them. But it seems like the biggest threat, as for most species in the end, is indirect killing through habitat destruction and habitat loss, fragmentation, areas that we see the highest numbers of jaguars have the lowest population of humans. So as the human population increases, we're going to see a decline in a lot of wildlife, including jaguars. But there was a study that just came out because it's really hard to estimate population numbers because you have to basically take a sample from all over and then try to find out a way to estimate something with all the variables in between. Pontanal is within the pontanal, the desi along the river, compared to 200 meters in is drastic. Along the river you can have eleven jaguars per 100 km², but outside of the river, right on the other side of the forest is like six. So it's super variable to estimate just for pontanal, but a world population, or a study taking all the studies that have happened over time and trying to find a model to fit it, came out with a number of like 173,000 jaguars are in the world right now, which is a pretty okay number compared to what we used to think. I think just a few years ago I saw something from WWF and everyone saying there's 60,000, which is mainly because of the models that they were using and the estimates that they were using. So this is a very good estimate using really good models and science. So that's kind of nice to hear. That number has gone up a lot. But yeah, in the Pontinell, you have a lot of conflict with cattle ranchers. That's the main threat because like I'd mentioned earlier, we don't have a big issue with land lost because of the flooding. But we do have cattle ranchers who, it's historically known that jaguars are a threat to your livelihood. You're not going to tolerate them. Just like the wolves or any other predator, you don't tolerate them. If you raise livestock, you see a jaguar, you shoot it. And that still happens today. And unfortunately, it's not always the jaguar's fault. It could be the animal sick, it could be that the calf, it was an abortion. Like, there's many reasons why the cows die. It could be puma. We have tons and tons of pumas in the Pontana. We don't see them ever, which is crazy, ever. But they're always on our camera traps. We get them all the time, but they're way more elusive than the jaguars. But they'll also kill a baby cow or a baby don't get. They don't get the blunt of it. In the pontinality, the jaguars do.
So. Yeah. Habitat loss and human conflict are the two major threats to jaguars. And that's a hard thing to address just because it happens all over the world, and no one's really figured out the special way to fix it. But in Pontinello, it seems like ecotourism is the secret answer. And of course, that doesn't work everywhere. But if you can ranch your cattle like your family done before you, but have a few 1015 rooms for wildlife viewers, you're going to be a pretty happy person. Fernando Tortado published his PhD on the value of cattle per hectare compared to jaguars. And it's like, per hectare cattle is worth like $25 a jaguar. Per hectare is like $85, because the price of these tours, how much more money you can make with jaguar tourism. So if you can have both of them together, it's worked multiple and multiple ranches throughout the Pontinalle, so we know that in the pontinal, this can work. Outside of the pontinal, you have to find some other iconic crazy species that people want to come see and spend tons of money, maybe like, like, that's the next thing for the hot. Sahado is not doing very well. But Sahado, now they're finding tons of black jaguars, which. That's my. I need to go see that.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:48:57] Speaker B: Really? Yeah. There's a big population of black jaguars in a few reserves and, like, farms, so that's really cool.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: Go.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: Let's go. Right. I didn't even see one of them.
[00:49:11] Speaker A: The final jaguar we spotted in the Porto Joffrey region was Pijana.
To our surprise, we found her outside of the park boundaries, five minutes downriver from where our mothership was parked. At first glance, Pijana looked similar to Madroza and zhaju, but after observing her more closely, it became clear that she was from a different bloodline. Her jaws were narrower and her eyes a light yellow, unlike Madroza's deep amber. In the direct sun, her eyes almost seemed white.
Her black spots were also darker than Madroza and Jaju's, as if mother nature turned up the contrast on her coat. She was beautiful.
Unlike in the Carissa negro, where we spotted Patricia, Ozado and Madroza, this river was steep without a low, gentle slope into the water.
In only a few places could Bijana reach the water's edge to search for Cayman and Kapibara.
When she didn't find what she was looking for, she traversed back up to the bank ledge to find the next river entrance.
The waters were moving fast, and our expert boat driver had to constantly work against the current to keep us within view.
Pijana continued upriver, popping in and out of thick vegetation to artilite as with the rest of our jaguar sightings, eventually Pijana reached the end of suitable hunting grounds and turned back into the jungle, out of sight.
Returning to my conversation with Abby, I wanted to know what the future held for her. The Jaguar ID project and the cats I'd grown to know and love.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: There's a lot of exciting things happening, actually. Like, we just opened a nonprofit in Brazil, which was way harder mission than I ever thought would be. It's much more easier to start one in the US. Let's just say that it was very difficult, but we just officially opened one in Brazil, which is really exciting because hopefully now we'll be more recognized within the community of nonprofits in Brazil. And I am doing my masters right now, which took me a really long time to go back to school because I was really enjoying my life of these jaguars and whatever.
But I'm going to be publishing the data on population dynamics and how jaguars respond to extreme events like fires, because this is something we are seeing. And with my data through the jaguar ID project, we can look at the population before, during, and after these huge burning events and see how they change. And we just did analysis, and the results show exactly what you would hypothesize, that you would see a spike in recruitment, meaning new jaguars from outside of the areas, out where there's no rivers coming to the rivers, and then you'd see a decline in the population and then slowly go back up. And that's exactly what we saw from 2020 going down. And now it's starting to come back up to where it was before the fire, but, bam, now there's another fire. So it's going to be really interesting to see what happens now because these two fire events happen so close to each other and there's not been fires before. So it's going to be really cool and hopefully help with providing information for legislation or future ideas of how we can manage this park and the importance of maybe prescribed burns so it doesn't get out of control. Or what can we do to protect this population? Because it's not only the largest population of jaguars that needs to be protected, but it's also an economic gold mine for the state and for the country. Someone told me now that when you look into a normal package to Brazil, they're like, oh, do you want to add on jaguars in the Pontinall? And they're like, sure, add that to my Rio de Janeiro trip. And people are going to Rio, and then they're just hopping on a plane and coming overseas. Jaguars real quick because you like. That's cool. Also kind of terrifying to see what will happen in the park with the number of boats because there is no regulation. So because we opened a nonprofit, our idea is to make a partnership with the state that manages this park to kind of guide better tourism.
One thing I noticed is, and you probably noticed, well, there's no, like, hey, guys, you're going on a boat and going to be in Jaguarland. You need to be careful. There's nothing. It's just like, anybody.
There's nothing. So, like, we want to provide material and signs in a little area by that big sign that says transpondero that talks about jaguars and what's happening in the region and how you should behave. And also a little video because I know when I went to Torres del Pines, we all went into a room before they released us into the park, and they're like, you need to watch this educational video. Don't do this. Don't do this, don't do this. You could do this, but be careful of this. Just a little three minute video that all the tourists can watch before they go out there, because there's no one watching, there's no rangers. It's kind of all up to us, and if we don't behave properly, we could lose this easily. If someone gets hurt or something happens, they can close that park because there's no management. And we hope to be kind of like that buffer. That's kind of where we see Jaguar ID project going, and that's kind of the exciting news, I guess. We will be doing a camera trap grid inside the park because I believe there's a ton of jaguars that just don't come to the river. They hear the boat and they already go. So we want to know exactly how many jaguars are there. I've recorded 370 cats in the last ten years, but that doesn't mean there's 370 cats there every year because some die, some leave, and so on. This year we recorded 159 individuals. That's our highest number yet with 54 new cats. So this is crazy numbers. Yeah. Really cool.
Like, 40% of the population has new individuals, which kind of doesn't make sense to me. So there's got to be more cats in there that we just don't see. So we're going to put up a camera trap grid, and we could definitely use help with camera trap donations.
If someone is watching this and they want to help, you can get on our website and donate a camera. That's going to be a huge. That's kind of what we're needing right now so that we can understand better what's actually going on. And not only jaguars, but we'll be able to see all the other wildlife that's in there that we don't get to see.
[00:56:22] Speaker A: It's day nine of the expedition in time to leave the mothership behind.
We deboard the boat and transferred to a small airstrip for our scenic flight to the southern Pentanao, where a whole new adventure awaited us.
In the next episode, we'll explore the Vazinda San Francisco, meet enhique in the field, spot new wildlife species, including ocelots, giant anteaters and crab eating fox, and learn how pantanell's ranches are becoming a positive force for conservation.
