Jaguar Predation

[Balam]

"It was just before midday on another beautiful day cruising along the upper reaches of the Rio Tres Irmaos. We had been following Pirata for several hours at close range as he hunted at the edge of the river. This particular jaguar was a jacare specialist and I have seen him chase, fight or catch more caiman than any other individual in the course of my work in Brazil. He often started hunting around mid-morning and we would often follow him for hours on end. He had a unique predation technique and would float downstream in the shallows hoping to simply bump into a caiman at the river’s edge. It was quite boring at times and after a few hours the temptation was always to go back to the hotel for lunch and avoid the sweltering midday temperatures. Luckily on this day we stuck with him and our persistence was rewarded. A huge splash alerted us to a possible attack and as we drifted the boat closer he emerged from the water with a HUGE caiman frantically thrashing in vain as he struggled to apply his trademark disabling bite to the back of the neck. The location and light in this instance were far from ideal with the battle taking place in the shadows and lots of vegetation obscuring my field of view. I remember talking behind my camera(Does anyone else do that?) imploring Pirata to bring the caiman out from the shade into the admittedly harsh midday light. Unfortunately he never did but right at the end of the confrontation I did get this clean image of predator and prey just before he dragged the giant reptile up the riverbank and out of sight"

"It was late morning and we were sat with a jaguar high up on the Rio Tres Irmaos. Suddenly the radio crackled into life and I saw @arrudabranco’s expression change in flash. A jaguar had jumped on a giant caiman downriver and was wrestling with it in the shallows of a small lagoon five minutes downriver. We immediately hauled the anchor and raced there at full-tilt. I was alongside my good friend @darylbalfourwildphotos on his first trip to the Pantanal. It was our second to last day and he was absolutely desperate to photograph a jaguar predating a caiman. In the many years I had been working in Brazil, I was fortunate enough to have witnessed and photographed this many times but, for Daryl, that five minute journey holding on for dear life was especially anxious. We arrived at the lagoon and could see three boats in the distance on the far side. They were parked adjacent to a thick swath of water hyacinth and up on the riverbank I could see the jaguar struggling to haul a gigantic caiman into the forest. I immediately told Branco to take the boat through the hyacinth from the side so we could get a good head on angle for the pic. After at first penetrating it at a fair speed, the thick coverage of it eventually started to slow our boat to a crawl just as the jaguar was beginning to win its battle with the huge reptile! We had fifteen seconds max with a clear field of view when I managed to capture this “abraco do morte” before the cat disappeared into the undergrowth. My heart was pounding from the excitement and thrill of the high speed journey, added to the tension of getting the boat in the right position for the picture when suddenly we were attacked by a swarm of bees! They appeared from nowhere and rapidly filled the boat, they were in our clothes and our hair and stinging relentlessly. A lot of screaming and shouting ensued as Branco somehow slowly navigated the boat out of the lagoon through a narrow channel and onto the open river were eventually he hit full speed and left the bees behind. The next morning my left ear had almost doubled in size after being repeatedly stung but I had a picture and a memory that would last a lifetime."

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