"Flooded ponds are starting to shrink and green grasses are reaching skyward, making jaguars, tapirs, and crab-eating foxes easier to spot as they seek out water. Palm fronds shroud a jaguar just 10 feet from our idling safari vehicle. As she bites into the hind leg of an unlucky cow, a loud snap sounds through the thick air. Lucas Nascimento Morgado, a young biologist who works for an NGO called Onçafari in these parts, grins giddily: "This is a special sighting, my friends.""
"The Pantanal is the world's largest tropical wetland, stretching across more than 42 million acres and two states in Brazil, with its floodplains seeping into Paraguay and Bolivia. The presence of jaguars here predates the Ice Age, meaning these cats once skulked alongside sabre-toothed tigers. They have since co-existed with Indigenous peoples, including the Terena and Guató, and cattle ranchers from nearby Paraguay and elsewhere in Brazil who began settling in the region about 300 years ago."
The Pantanal is the world's largest flooded grassland and tropical wetland, spanning more than 42 million acres across two Brazilian states and extending into Paraguay and Bolivia. Seasonal floods recede in March, concentrating wildlife—jaguars, tapirs, and crab-eating foxes—around shrinking water sources. Jaguars have inhabited the region since before the Ice Age and have coexisted with Indigenous peoples such as the Terena and Guató and with cattle ranchers for centuries. Historic exploitation included big-game hunting and sportfishing; jaguar numbers declined across the past century due to hunting and habitat loss. Pioneering lodges and NGOs now promote ecotourism to help safeguard the Pantanal against climate change.
Read at CN Traveller
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