Jaguar safaris

healthy populations, but incredibly elusive

Jaguars are the largest cats in South America, the third largest species in the world after tigers and lions.

Remarkably, there are reckoned to be around 180,000 jaguars in the wild, which is five times the number of wild lions and forty times the number of wild tigers.

Although there may still be a few cats extant in the southern United States, their range is generally considered to extend from Mexico in the north, all the way down to Paraguay and northern Argentina.

The majority of this range is comprised of dense tropical forest, centred on the Amazon Basin and running up through Central America. They also live in savanna (notably in central Brazil) and marshland areas (especially the Pantanal area of southern Brazil.

Jaguars are essentially similar to leopards, not least in their appearance. Both species are of a similar size and have the same characteristic pattern of spots, but jaguars are slightly larger and more heavily built.

Like leopards, jaguars usually lead a solitary existence, with adults only coming together to mate and youngsters often staying with their mothers until sub-adulthood.

Jaguars hunt by stealth and rarely pursue prey over distances of more than a few metres. They are good swimmers and often appear to be quite happy in the water.

Although the jaguar population remains substantial, there are considerable ongoing threats to habitats across large parts of their natural range.

The biggest problem that jaguars face is persecution by livestock farmers, who do not appreciate the fact that an adult male can kill up to fifty cows each year for food.

Conservation projects in these semi-agricultural areas are focused on alleviating these threats by offering compensation payments for lost livestock and creating alternative revenues through environmental tourism.

the key location is the Pantanal Wetlands of Brazil

Jaguars are incredibly elusive and can only be viewed with any reliability in a handful of specialist locations.

By far the most reliable location is the north of the Pantanal (in southwest Brazil), where a good number of cats have the habit of prowling the riverbanks in the hope of catching animals by surprise as they come down to drink.

The best of the lodges in this area, most notably SouthWild Jaguar Lodge, are typically able to deliver multiple jaguar sightings per day, with viewing taking place largely from boats. This frequency is far higher than anywhere else in the world, so if you really want to see jaguars, this place is the hands-down winner.

On the south side of the Pantanal, Caiman Main Lodge hosts a major jaguar conservation project, which includes attaching radio-collars to some animals. It is possible to head out with the researchers, so sightings are close to being guaranteed, although not with the frequency of those in the north.

After the Pantanal, the frequency of jaguar sightings falls sharply.

In the Tambopata Amazon area of southeast Peru, Tambopata Research Center Lodge is rather more serious about its wildlife viewing and offers perhaps a 30% chance of seeing a jaguar over the course of a three night stay.

The only other place that there is a slightly better than average chance is out of Uakari Floating Lodge in the central Manaus Amazon area, where there is also a jaguar project with radio-collared animals, although the location is very remote and the project not so very reliable.