Roberto Carlos Conceição Arruda recalls the moment in 2002 when an ordinary morning routine took a harrowing turn. It was around 8 a.m., in the remote mountainous region of Serra do Amolar in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state, and Arruda, better known as Beto, then 29 years old, had left his house to fetch […]
  • The recent death of a man by a jaguar in Brazil’s Pantanal wetland has drawn public attention to the challenges of local coexistence between humans and the largest felines in the Americas.
  • People are not typical prey for jaguars, but more frequent fires and natural prey scarcity have driven the big cats to encroach on ranches and farms, where domestic animals make for easy pickings — but also where confrontation with humans can erupt.
  • Pantanal communities complain about the lack of security to which they are exposed, arguing that protection of jaguars by environmental agencies should also include balanced coexistence with the human population.