Our friends at the Caiman Ecological Refuge in the Pantanal, South America, sent us through this fascinating footage of a female jaguar, named Chuva, with her brand new cub. Jaguar expert and guide, Helder Brando, tells us a little bit more about this special creature.
“On the eve of another campaign of the Onçafari Project at Caiman Ecological Refuge for recording and monitoring of new jaguars, the jaguar matriarch made an unexpected appearance.
Chuva and Cub
The first jaguar captured was named as Rain (Chuva) and after four months of the campaign and monitoring of its living area, this beautiful female appears at one of our camera traps. She has appeared many times, but on March first, the month of women, Rain (Chuva) surprised everyone when she stoped right in front of the camera and then was followed by her young cub.
This female jaguar is perfect for us. She lives between our two lodges, very close to the main house of the ranch. She is always walking around the big lake and uses the roads frequently. She is quite used to the vehicles and very calm when we get close. Now she has got a cub and we are hopeful that this is going to be the same pattern of behavior for the cub.”
Written by: Helder Brando, Caiman Ecological Refuge
Hi Helder ,what a welcome addition to a sadly endangered beautiful animal ,are they bigger than leopards and do they use trees as much as leopards . Keith
Hi Keith,
Yes, Jaguars are bigger than leopards… a big male leopard is about the size of a female lioness… They do climb trees but nowhere near as often as leopards.
Cheers,
Mario
Mario, thanks for your response, very interesting to hear your knowledge and understanding of jaguars on our blog. We look forward to any more information that you can provide us with and to posting more of your stories. Regards, rich
Hi Keith,
We are glad to hear that you saw Caiman Ecological Refuge’s jaguars here at Londolozi blog.
Male Jaguars can weight up to 150 kg and even though jaguars leave a lot of claw marks on trees and sometimes sleep on them they are the top of food chain at the Pantanal so jaguars prefer staying on the ground level.
Soon more news about the largest wildcat of the Americas.
Best wishes.
Helder
Hi there !
is there any project of bringing jaguars to africa ? as there was a successful project of bringing tigers to wild africa. Is anyone monitoring that project anymore?
There is no project that I know of that is bringing Jaguars to Africa. This story is about Jaguars in their indigenous habitat of the Pantanal in Brazil. The tiger project continues, you can find out more on John Varty’s website http://www.jvbigcats.co.za/