Today we headed into the Jameikari Indio Reserve. This is part of the “conflict” area of the new jaguar corridor, an area dotted with human settlements and slash-and-burn farms. The jag team was on a fact-finding mission here, trying to get a sense of how many jaguars roam the area, and how accustomed the animals have become to grabbing an easy meal of the locals’ livestock.

We set off up a mountain and trudged for many hours through steamy heat. I was so sweaty that I looked like I’d stepped into a shower fully clothed. We trudged up and down through incredibly lush rainforest. Strangler fig and ceiba roots snaked across the forest floor; the trees were hung with thick vines and shrouded in bromeliads, orchids, and other plants. The canopy formed a woven green ceiling far above. When you walk into the forest, you enter a wall of sound made by cicadas and other local insects. The screeching buzz of the bugs is punctuated by the musical squawks of brilliant green perricos (parrots) talking to each other – which brings back great memories of previous trips here, as it is my wife’s favorite sound.

I shot along the way, trying not to sweat too much on my cameras. My glasses were so fogged up I could not see and had nothing that was dry enough to wipe them with.

Two hours later we arrived at a tiny village. Nine houses were nestled in private corners of forest. We found out that this was not our ultimate destination for the day—and they did not want us to stay overnight (though six hours and three excursions later we actually did end up sleeping here.) The researchers started asking questions for the survey they were conducting, and discovered that a jaguar had been killing one of the villager’s livestock.  He lost nine pigs just a couple of days ago.

Alan and his team gathered as much information from him as possible, then we set off again, though none of us were really up for another walk down the mountain to the next settlement. “Hey it’s only 45 minutes,” they told us. Maybe for those who grew up here, but not for us. We were accompanied by the village matriarch, Dona Sylvia, the head of the community. She was a very regal woman, with a red bandana on her head, carrying her always-present machete.  Her wonderful laugh helped keep me moving during the difficult, unbelievably hot trek. As we walked, she pointed out plants that were important to them for food or traditional medicine.

A few hours later, we finally reached our destination: a small, round house deep in the jungle where one extended family lived. Jaguar tracks carpeted the area. Unfortunately, this family has lost almost 200 pigs in the last two years. If a jaguar comes into the area and kills a pig, the rest flee into the jungle; usually, they are never recovered.

I photographed the tracks, and shot pix of Alan, Kathy, and Roberto as they interviewed the head of the family, Franklin, about his lost pigs—and about local jaguars and other wildlife.

Finally, we headed back to Dona Sylvia’s roundhouse for the night, utterly exhausted. It had been eight hours of walking through what felt like a humid oven. Dona Sylvia warned us that the roof leaked, but we were too tired to care. Alan slept in a hammock and Roberto and I slept on wooden pallets. By the time we laid down to sleep, I could have slept on a rock.

Starting around 7 a.m., a constant stream of men began trickling in to have breakfast with Dona Sylvia to discuss village business. The jaguar team questioned them all about what kinds of animals they commonly see – and particularly, whether they see jaguar or puma tracks during their days in the fields or the forest.

When they were done, we packed the horses with our gear. We had rented two horses from a ranch on the way into the reserve, and used two of Dona Sylvia’s to get out. In the evening, outside of a roadhouse, I set up my BGAN (a broadband satellite uplink) to upload these blogs.

We are going to do a large driving survey of another area of the jaguar corridor tomorrow.
Later all.

—Steve Winter

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