IN SEARCH OF JAGUARS IN THE WILD

We stand dead still. We try to be silent, but the rainforest around us isn’t. There’s buzzing, humming and squawking. And to our right, a rustle in the undergrowth. I hope it’s a jaguar, I really do, writes Richard Robinson, editor of Jaguar’s global customer magazine JAGUAR.

We’ve come to the Osa Peninsula in south‑western Costa Rica in search of the elusive big cat. Here is the largest expanse of primary tropical rainforest north of the Amazon basin and one of the ever‑shrinking numbers of places on the planet where the jaguar still roams free.

Our guides are Aida Bustamante and Ricardo Moreno, who run the wild cat conservation program, Yaguará. Working with the local Friends of the Osa group, they’ve positioned more than 130 cameras at strategic points in the rainforest to create the most intensive camera‑trap study of big cats in the world.

Big cat conservationists Aida Bustamante and Ricardo Moreno check one of their cameras
 

Our aim, naturally, is to see a jaguar in the wild. But we’re far from optimistic. Aida has worked in the area for seven years, Ricardo for around five, and while they have snapped four jaguar males on camera, they’ve yet to see one in the flesh.

So we don our rubber boots, a recommendation to protect us from snake bites, particularly the vicious and lethal fer de lance, and start hiking deep into the forest. With the growl of a puma off in the distance and vultures flying overhead, we’re already feeling like we’re part of the food chain.

While around 40 jaguars are believed to exist in the nearby Corcovado National Park, Aida and Ricardo are focusing their efforts on southern Osa and the corridor of forest and countryside that links Osa to the park and the rest of Costa Rica.

This is a critically important part of the jaguar’s habitat, and an area in desperate need of Yaguará’s conservation efforts. Conflicts between the cats and local population have seen at least nine jaguars hunted and killed in the area since 2008.

Part of Aida and Ricardo’s work is to try and educate the local communities about the jaguar’s endangered status. Last year, the couple gave around 200 talks to locals. Yaguará is also the only wild cat conservation program is South America that provides financial compensation to farmers whose livestock has been killed by a puma or jaguar, to try and limit the number of jaguars that are hunted.

It’s dark and stiflingly hot under the thick jungle canopy. The track we’re following is almost invisible as low‑lying plants vie for space and cover every inch of the ground. Just as a wave of fear and claustrophobia starts to build, the canopy opens and we arrive at a site where two cameras face each other across a well‑worn path.

The cameras have heat and motion sensors and any movement bigger than a mouse triggers a photograph. They’re also flash‑equipped and fire quickly so the whole animal is caught in shot. Memory cards hold around 1,000 images.

After Aida changes the card, installs fresh batteries and cleans the lens, we’re all ready to resume our trek. Then we sense a presence in the nearby undergrowth. We hear a rustle, see leaves twitch and we hold our breath.

But out strolls a Great Curassow – a large, plump bird with a crazy crest of forward‑curling feathers on its head. A jaguar wouldn’t have made that rustle. They’re just too stealthy to be that obvious.

It was too much to expect. But that night, back at the Osa Biodiversity Center where Aida and Ricardo are based, we console ourselves by pouring over photographs of the jaguars, like the one we show here, captured by Yaguará’s network of cameras.

Jaguar in the wild, captured by a Yaguará camera trap

 

Visitors are welcomed to the Osa Peninsula and there are four luxury eco lodges providing accommodation. Aida and Ricardo hold weekly Wild Cats Conservation talks at the lodges and have cameras set‑up in the grounds of all three. For more information, visit www.yaguara.org, or www.osaconservation.org