Read an Excerpt from “Heart of the Jaguar” 

Dive into Heart of the Jaguar by James Campbell, a fascinating story of the movement to protect the jaguar and the man who devoted his life to saving the species, Panthera co-founder Dr. Alan Rabinowitz. 

This except from Chapter 21 details Campbell’s first sighting of a jaguar in the Brazilian Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland, alongside Panthera Jaguar Program Director Dr. Allison Devlin.  

I desperately wanted to see a big cat before I left the Pantanal. 

I was sitting next to our guide, when just ten minutes upriver of São Bento, he slowed and then cut the motor. Then I heard him utter the word: onça. The sound barely left his lips. But he didn’t need to say it. I had seen the big cat, fifty feet from our boat, on the riverbank, under the branches of an overhanging tree. Suddenly everyone aboard was silent. I was aware of my breath and tried to inhale and exhale as imperceptibly as I could. 

The jaguar lay lazily in the sand, unconcerned by our presence or the rapid shutter click of cameras. I couldn’t make out its entire form, but I could see its head, big and broad. It had a scar on its face. Its ears and tail twitched to ward off insects. As I was about to take a photo, the jaguar stood. It didn’t jump to its feet. Nor did it get up wearily. It rose, as if every muscle in its body worked in perfect concert. Then it walked to the river and drank. Despite the heat, it didn’t lap desperately at the water. It crouched and drank with a languid assurance. It held its tail high, but not once did it lift its head to look at us. 

Then I heard Allison Devlin whisper, “It’s Aju.” 

I thought Aju might return to his lair to lie down again, but instead he walked along the beach, near the edge of the water, even closer to our boat. It was then that I really saw him, his extraordinary power, his bull neck, his length, probably eight feet long from nose to tail, the musculature of his shoulders, the protruding belly that made him look as if he’d just consumed an entire caiman... I had seen wolves, wolverines, grizzlies, polar bears, lions, elephants, and countless other wild creatures in their natural habitat, but no animal had ever captured my imagination like that jaguar. I glassed him with my binoculars, the dominant male of the Três Irmãos River, focusing on the pattern of his rosettes running along his rib cage. Seconds later he sprang easily onto a small ridge. He stood there for a moment watching the river, and then he was gone. 

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