Jaguar Attack - A Rare and Deadly Encounter

Hello listeners, welcome back to an episode of Tooth and Claw podcast. We have our wildlife bear biologist Wes Larson with us. Wildlife bears, those are my specialties. You might know him from a show that he did called The Great Big Story. If you're just... Mission Wild. Mission Wild. But I don't even know him from that. And then I'm his younger brother. You know me from Mom's womb, which we weren't in together, but we both were in it. You think you had remnants in there still that I met? I wrote my name on the wall. Yeah. Wes was here. Yes, I'm Wes's younger brother, Jeff, and I benched 200 pounds one time three years ago. A bit of a koala brain. You know, pretty cute, fun, but not like super smart. This is a what have you done for me lately podcast, Jeff. How many times have you benched 200 pounds? Actually, I'm not sure if I ever have. I've never really benched for like a max weight. Oh, wow. I don't think I have either. Oh, wow. You're our record holder, Jeff. Sounds like Mike, our sound guy is a little jealous of how much I benched three years ago, but 200 is a lot. But the listeners like to know, you know, 200 is a lot. I think they know by now, Jeff. I'm pretty sure they've heard you say this before. How much does the car weigh? Like 400 pounds, maybe, maybe on a good day. Next time we're all three together, let's go to the gym and let's have a little bench off. That's what I think it's funny is I actually think you can both bench 200 pounds like right now. I don't. Short arms, dude. Short arms, you can bench more and Mike's just Mike's your short arms. Mike. No, you directs arms, dude. I think my arms are pretty proportional to my body, though. But I'm saying like shorter people are better at bench than taller people. And like you've always dominated me at arm wrestling. So I just feel like you might be pretty good at bench. I think I think you're thinking of like 15 years ago, probably still though. I don't think I'd beat you anymore. I got a bad wrist now, Jeff. My wrist hurts. Yeah. From what? Just from a cyst that I had removed a long time ago. Overused. The doctor did a bad job. Yeah, overused. Bad form. Right in all these papers. Are hottest day of the year here. So you guys are going to see me slowly cook alive. Oh yeah. The hottest thing he like insists on recording in his shed where there's like Robbins that live right on top of it. And then he has to turn his AC off right when we start recording. Because you guys make me do it. Slowly builds throughout the episode. If I recorded inside the problem is the pets. The pets are too loud, you know. To bring up our story for the day, it takes place in somewhere really hot and muggy that we're about to go to. Hell yeah. In two days the three of us are leaving for Brazil and we're going to meet some toothy listeners in the Pantanal. Which is one of my favorite places on earth. I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, you better pack. It is a great place. It is full of wildlife and it is without a doubt the best place in the world to see the subject of today's story, the Noble Jaguar. Oh yeah. My last big cat that I haven't seen and... Same with Mike. I'm really excited to go to Brazil but I'm also kind of like really worried. I'm pretty sure we're going to see one. Well that's my worry. Yeah, it's possible. I don't know. Never in my wild life. Well I'm saying if I see one I don't know if I'll have a purpose in life. Yeah, yeah, we might all not come back from this trip. It's great and you guys are going to love it and I'm really excited to show it to you. Just so everyone knows, when we started this podcast, me and Jeff both pronounced the word jaguar like jaguar and I have been working really hard on not saying a jaguar anymore on saying jaguar. So if I slip up, just know that I know and that Jeff knows. I think jaguar kind of sounds cooler. Jaguar sounds cooler to me too, but whatever. You guys want to learn how to say it in Portuguese? Yeah. Onça. Onça pintada is how you say jaguar in Portuguese. You can just say onça which pretty much means like panther, but that's what they use for jaguars, but onça pintada is painted panther and that is like the true name for jaguar. So you will hear that word a lot as we're on the river. They're going to be looking for onça. On the river? What? Can they walk on water? Like Jesus? No, when we're on the river. Cool. Not like Paul. They do love Jesus down there. He got like two steps. Don't short dude. Change my guy, Paul. That's why I don't even try. He walked on water two steps and got chastised for it, for like not having a lot of faith. Yeah, that's a good point. You did a pretty good job all things considered. It's just like, I'm not going to try. Prexton or Mike insert our Bible noise there. Okay. All right. So I'm actually kind of shocked by today's story because I was just kind of thinking what should the topic be and I thought, let's do a jaguar story. And in my mind, I thought, okay, there's going to be one that I heard about in a zoo and then probably just a few little ones that we didn't report on last time we did jaguars. And as I search for stories, I found one that happened this year in the Pantanal and it ended pretty tragically. So it's like, it's kind of a crazy story. It's pretty unprecedented for this part of Brazil. I did actually, I found a study that said they think there's like somewhere around 20 jaguar attacks every year in Brazil. But I think most of those are people that like surprise one and maybe it charges them or something. That's a lot more than we've previously said though. Yeah. This is though of the big cats and especially of the roaring cats, which are tigers, lions, leopards and jaguars. This is the one that definitely attacks the least amount of people. And I'm going to get into that. I think it's actually the most interesting part of this episode is my theory based on a jaguar scientist book on why that might be. I shouldn't say it's my theory, but it's like a theory that I kind of agree with that I've heard before. And now it's mine. Yeah. I claim. Michael Scott quoting Wayne Gretzky or whatever. Anyway, we'll get into that. I've always kind of especially since I've listened to you so much about animals doing this podcast, you know, your whole life. Never. And I do feel like as far as like how dangerous an animal is or just like how much you would expect an animal to attack people, jaguars are like the most lacking in attacks of any animal like proportion. Sure. And it's not like they only like like snow leopards, for example, live in the high Himalayas where you have very few people like the human footprint there is really, really, really small. So we really don't have any attacks from them. But with jaguars, there's there's quite a bit of overlap in places that have a lot of people like Brazil is a heavily populated country. And yeah, Mike, you have something you want to say. I think swordfish has to be on that list somewhere too, right, Jeff? Got sord in their name and they just never attack. It's not like fish like people though. Swordfish are attacking like Marlins aren't attacking people all the time. They do sometimes, though. Yeah, there's people that have been skewered by like a leopard just seems like a real close version of a jaguar. Like they seem so similar and they're like a little bit smaller even and they people up all the time. If we were to Google right now, leopard attack, there would be one, I promise you, from the last two weeks. And I was surprised that I could find a jaguar attack from this year. Yeah, that's how different those cats are. So let's get into the story. It's a really interesting one. It's one that occurred. What about swordfish attack? That might be a little bit harder. Yeah. Maybe Mike's right. Yeah. So we are going to the northern part of the Pantanal, which is in the state of Matogrosso. This one occurs in Matogrosso dos Sul, which is the southern part of the Pantanal, which is an area that I visit this exact area with my naturalist journeys group, because there's some different bird life there. The trip's a little longer. We go to this exact area. So I was really shocked, especially to hear where it took place, because this isn't even in like the prime heart of the jaguar territory within the Pantanal. But all of the Pantanal is technically jaguar territory. Okay. In early April, 2025, 60 year old Georgie Avalo and his brother-in-law bent down and examined the large paw prints outside Georgia's room. While all kinds of animals from dogs, capybara, everything else was commonly walking around this small fishing lodge on the shore of the Miranda River in the Pantanal of Matogrosso dos Sul. These prints were far too large to be anything, but the most sought after and the most respected animal in the area, the jaguar. And there were two of them. So this wasn't George's first time seeing tracks just from the screened in kitchen area where he would enjoy his morning coffee and his meals. A few nights before a remote camera had picked up a jaguar crouching behind a tree just a few feet away from this building. And George had spotted the big cats dozens of times during his decades in this area. And they're really good for business. So these tracks that he was looking at with his brother-in-law were likely from two jaguars that had been kind of maybe fighting for dominance or for something in the area. There's this video of them walking around just like looking at all of the paw prints and it's literally on their front step. I'm not exaggerating when I say that. Like they're standing within an arm's reach of their house and there are jaguar tracks everywhere. Cool. Like I said, this is pretty good for their business. He is the caretaker for a fishing lodge and many of the visitors to the lodge and this area in general have one main target when it comes to the animals that they hope to see. It's kind of kind of like our trip to Brazil. Our main target is a jaguar and even a brief glimpse of a jaguar can absolutely solidify a trip to the area as the trip of a lifetime. This is a cat that's really hard to see anywhere else in the world. So this is like where you go to see them. It's not easy to get to. It's not cheap to get to. So like when you see one, it makes all that effort and time and money worthwhile. So they're kind of big business. And other fishermen and ranchers or people that really aren't interested in tourism would be really dismayed to see jaguar tracks so close to their property. Georgie was thrilled. He was just really excited. He and his brother-in-law made this video and they're chatting happily about what looked like a fight for dominance in their front yard. Just like for them, it means that when tourism season comes, they're probably going to have jaguars around, which is good. You ever have to fight for dominance in your front yard? Not really. I'm trying to think if like I've ever gotten a fight with Jesse in the front yard, but yeah, it wouldn't have been a physical fight. We've never been in a physical fight. Never will, but I would have lost for sure. Any fight with her, I generally lose. Okay. George felt a connection and just so everyone knows, I watched a lot of videos on this. There's a lot of YouTube videos from people that don't speak Portuguese. Everyone pronounced this guy's name Jorge, because that's how you would say this in Spanish. It's George in. George. George. It's kind of like George, but it's like George. Yeah. We're Portuguese, I guess. Yeah. It's kind of like French and Spanish mixed together. It's very nasally. So he felt a connection to these cats and he actually kind of felt like that connection went both ways. Like they kind of had an understanding and he knew that their presence could make his lodge, which he didn't own this lodge, but he worked there. The most popular lodge in the area. And he was confident that having them around really didn't pose much of a danger to him, to the other residents, to any guests. So he started taking some measures to keep Jaguars around. It's a dangerous line of thinking. You know how in the latest Batman Riddler, he thinks he and Batman are on the same page that whole time. Yeah. And he goes, no, no. No. And starts crying in the cell because they didn't have a connection. He was wrong. No. Batman was too stupid for him. Right. I don't know who's the Riddler in this situation. I mean, Riddler was pretty stupid to you. Yeah. He like couldn't tell who it was. That's true. 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Uh, there was evidence that this was occurring. Eyewitness accounts that it was happening. It could have been as simple as him leaving fish corpses or scraps in front of the lodge near the river or as blatant as someone throwing meat to the cats as they approached. I really don't know what it was like, but there is evidence that there was some intentional feeding happening in this area. One of the jaguars that was eating the food being left out by the lodge was a large male who had had a rough season during the rains to explain the Pantanal a little bit in the rainy season. There's a ton of water that enters all those river systems, the high plateaus around the Pantanal that all flows down into this wetland. Those rivers overflow and essentially the entire wetland fills with water. And that is kind of like, it's really important to the ecosystem. Um, we're going to talk about it more on our trip, but that rise and fall of the water is what creates all these conditions that lead to so much wildlife being in this area. But when the rains do fall and the rivers rise, it's a lot harder for jaguars to find food because when the rivers are low, all of their prey gather kind of on the edges of this water and hunting is actually quite easy for them, especially for Cayman and Capipara. They kind of just can walk the river's edge and find food. That's what we're going to see in Brazil. That's why when you visit jaguar places, you should go during the dry season. But in the, in the rainy season, they have to be a lot more kind of risk, risky in their choices. So sometimes they'll take cattle, they'll take dogs. They'll be a little bit more focused on nontraditional sources of food. So the rainy season can kind of introduce some new variables for jaguars. You guys, that makes sense to you guys. Yeah. It's like, I don't really have a whole lot to eat at my house right now. I have like some little oyster crackers. When I'm hungry, you kind of have to just go after what you got, you know? Oyster crackers. Yeah. You know, they're like the dry season for you. It's very dry. All the salt from those crackers. So what's their, their preferred time for eating, you think rainy season or dry season? Dry season is by far their easiest time for hunting. And like, they only eat meat, right? Yes, they are true carnivores. Every once in a while, you'll see meat and grass like cats eat, like catnip, just to kind of settle their stomachs. But that's not, it's not for nutrition. It's just to kind of. No wonder they're always fighting for dominance. That's meat eater behavior. Like, yeah, liver king and Joe Rogan. Yeah. They might fight just to fight, you know, just to fight. Yeah. Yeah. And they only eat meat. Who you got in that fight, Jeff? Rogan, black belt, dude. Me too. I honestly, I think liver king is like one soft punch in the chest away from a heart attack. Exploding. Yeah. Just his heart's gonna explode. And his skin, his skin just looks like it's like stretched to like the point where, and like, if you poked him with a needle, he would just like shoot off. Deflate. Yeah. Like way night in space jam. That's what I'm always thinking about. Anyway, this male Jaguar was covered in scars from territorial battles over the years, and he was about 10% skinnier than he probably should have been this time of year. This food that was being left out was really easy and it required no effort. So it kept him in the area, but it wasn't enough to sustain it. And he really needed something more substantial. As he went to bed on the night of April 20th, George didn't know that he had already set himself on a trajectory with tragedy. This large male Jaguar was already outside. It had finished the handout from the day and now it was waiting for the morning routine. And the, and cats will do this and other animals will sometimes too. It's very likely that this Jaguar had watched and just kind of sat and memorized the routine of this lodge. It probably knew what George did in the morning, like how he came out. The coffee, where he would drink his coffee, all of that. I think it's very likely that it had spent enough time there that it kind of was ready for him in the morning. Black male on his affair. Yeah. It was taking photos laying, laying back in a car very quietly. Um, so during that time, it had probably also gradually lost its fear of being in such close proximity to humans. And now the rewards of life near the lodge seem to be kind of outweighing the risks of being this close to the lodge. George was betting on decades of experience in the area when it came to having Jaguars as close. He had seen the videos of this Jaguar right outside of his room and he had heard stories of the occasional dust up that maybe a hunter, a rancher, or a fisherman might have had with the Jaguar. But essentially all of these stories ended in both the human and the Jaguar getting away. I think before this, the last fatal attack in the Pantanal was like 15 years prior and it was in a far different part of the Pantanal. So who knows if he'd ever even heard of that. Yeah. These stories are fun to tell, to nervous tourists for him, but everyone in the area knew that Jaguars simply were not interested in humans' prey. They would just kind of pass through the area. Sometimes they would kill cattle or dogs, but that's about it. But the next morning, George would make himself the exception to that rule as he enjoyed his last cup of coffee that he would have in his life. Wow. Converted to Mormonism. Yeah. More coffee. All right. Let's talk a little bit about Jaguar biology and evolution. We've done quite a bit on their biology in our last episode. We went into their mythology quite a bit in that episode. So this time I'm really going to focus on evolution and I think it's really, really interesting stuff, but quickly let's go over some biology stuff. Jeff. Where are they in our big cats as far as size is concerned? Third place. Third place. Who's in front? A distant third from lions and then tigers. Yeah. A distant third from male lions, but actually a male Jaguar is essentially the same size as a lioness, a little bit smaller, but like pretty close to the same size as a lioness. Yes. They're, they're big cats and the ones in the Pantanal, we're going to talk specifically about the Pantanal lot. They're actually the biggest group of Jaguars in the world. There's no subspecies for Jaguars. They're all the same species, but the Pantanal ones do tend to be a bit bigger. Males in the region are often heavier than 200 pounds. The largest on record was 348 pounds, which is a big cat. That's really big. I mean, me and Jeff caught bears that were 350 pounds and that's a big bear. So it's a huge cat. What percent bigger would you say they are than leopards? I think leopards are like top out generally at like 150, 200. So I would guess that these guys are like 25 percent bigger would be my guess. Yeah. I don't know. Jeff, I'm not great with numbers. Just anecdotally speaking, I've not ever seen a Jaguar. So maybe this means nothing, but they always seem a lot more like dense and solid than a leopard. Yeah. Yeah. They don't seem like much longer, like taller. They're just like built. Shorter, shorter legs. They could bend your bodies, bigger heads. Mike, what do you know? Like the best way to kind of tell a photo apart of these two cats. I know Jeff knows what's the like, what do you look for in a Jaguar versus a leopard? The the rosette spots, there's a dot in the middle of the donut shape. And I think that's Jaguar. That's correct. Correct. And not all of their rosettes will have that, but a couple of them will. So if you see any spots in the middle of a rosette, it's very likely that you're looking at a Jaguar. The best way to tell them apart in the wild is just where you are. So if you are in the Americas, you and you're seeing a big spotted cat, it's a Jaguar. If you're anywhere else, it's a leopard. All right. So Jaguars have Jaguar crews. It's probably not a leopard. Exactly. That'd be nice if stalactites and stalagmites were like that because I can't ever remember which or which if only one appeared in like the northern hemisphere and the other was only in the southern. It'd be so easy. I mean, kind of like that. One only appears up top and one only appears down. I guess I just need to. But which, which one's which? No one knows. When we see a Jaguar, Mike, are you just going to yell the whole time? Yeah, probably. Here, here's, I'll make a deal with you. If the guide is screaming at the other guide over the leopard or the Jaguar, I'm going to feel comfortable, be comfortable doing the same. You won't be louder than him. I know that rule. Don't be louder than the guide. Yeah, that was Wes is referencing. We saw a leopard in a tree and we were pretty close and Mike was like talking at like a normal volume, but it felt really loud in this situation. And we both shushed him. Half the story. But a minute later, the guides were just yelling at each other from car to car. And I don't know, I don't want to speak for Wes, but I was like, oh man, I feel bad for sure. Mike, these guys are like being so much louder yelling and honking and stuff. There was a car right by us, like revving its engine. So I had to speak a little louder to be heard. And then it like turned its engine off real quick, right? When I started really getting it was bad timing. I shouldn't have shushed you. I hate being shushed. Myself esteem has never recovered. Jaguars have bigger heads, stockier bodies. Their spot patterns often have more of kind of these big blended black spots that almost look like stripes. So if you look at enough photos of both animals, you can really get a good feel for the ways that they look different. There's somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 jaguars just in the Pantanal. The range over an area that is about 70,000 square miles, which is roughly the size of the state of Washington. This means that the Pantanal has the highest density of jaguars anywhere in the world. There's a reason for that. The Pantanal is the world's biggest wetland and it's home to a ton of wildlife and a lot of potential prey for jaguars. The most abundant prey species being the Yaakare Kamin. It's a medium sized crocodilian that jaguars are really good at catching and killing. Probably my favorite animal to like sea hunt. Like watching a jaguar hunt a Kamin is like my favorite type of like watch this hunting animal hunting video. You know, yeah. And if we get lucky, we'll see him hunting, which is pretty cool. You guys want to guess how many Yaakare Kamin there are in the Pantanal? So there's 7,000 jaguars. Yeah. I'm going to guess 18,000. Oh, I was going to go way high. Now I feel maybe dumb. I was going to say like 800,000. There are roughly 10 million. What? Yaakare Kamin in the Pantanal. You guys aren't going to believe how many there are. Like you stop at a pool of water and you'll count like 30 in a tiny little pond. They are everywhere. Can you swim with them? You could. They're fish eaters. The only time they ever bite people is when people are harassing them. You're not, you're not allowed to swim with them in the Pantanal, but you could. And nothing would happen. They are the largest population of any crocodilian anywhere in the world by a good margin. And when we get there, you guys will see these chompy little f**kers are everywhere. I mean, they are everywhere. What makes them so? Is it just because it's untouched by man, the land out there? It's just great habitat and they're not really hunted or anything. Like alligators, I want to say we have something like three or four million alligators in the U.S. And this is just a huge wetland and they're just really good at what they do. That's insane. That's more than people. It's not more than people, but it's a lot of it's a lot of Cayman. You know, it doesn't belong in your epic summer plans, getting burned by your old wireless bill. While you're planning beach trips, barbecues and three day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back. That's why a few years ago I made the switch to Mint Mobile. So say goodbye to your overpriced wireless plans, jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talking text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. 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But for most visitors to the area, the Jaguar is the most sought after wildlife sighting. And during the summer, you can find them patrolling the banks of different rivers and waterway. Which one did you do at Jeff? The Mane Wolf. Yeah, I'm going to try pretty hard for that one once I have my time in between trips. Once you buy yourself. Well, there just isn't time to do it on our trip. Yeah. Mike would be most stoked, I'm guessing, for a giant ant eater. That would be sweet. Did you do this, that? I didn't say that. They are there. They're a lot easier to find in the Southern Pantanal. We always see them down there in the Northern Pantanal. They're a little trickier, but we are going to try for them on our trip. Too bad for them. They're not. They're not K-mini-eaters. Yeah. They're ant eaters. Lots of ants and termites too. Yeah. It's without a doubt the best place in the world to see jaguars. I interviewed a jaguar researcher in Mexico that had been studying them for decades. He had yet to see one in the wild, but I've had days in the Pantanal where I've seen like five or six different jaguars. So it's, it's really the place to see. It's, Mexico's hard. They don't show up much in Mexico. All right. One more interesting tidbit about the Pantanal is that about 95% of it is owned privately. Most of that being large scale cattle ranches. So with so many cattle being raised in this wetland, there's a lot of cattle kills by jaguars. The 2010 study looked at kills from 10 different collared jaguars and found that about a third of their diet was cattle. And you guys remember, they've kind of two ways that they like to kill prey. Do you guys remember what it is? Yeah. I know one. They crushed the skulls with their jaws because they have a really powerful bite. Yep. So the skull or the back of the neck are kind of what jaguars go for. And it's just crushing the vertebrae, crushing the skull. And then if they have something really big that they're having a hard time with, they'll switch to the front of the throat, like a lot of other cats do and suffocate it, but they do like to grab the back of the neck or the back of the skull. So even with all of these cattle depredations, lots of jaguars existing in a place that now has a pretty decent human footprint, we really don't see many attacks on humans. And I read a few different books on jaguars and I really like this theory that Alan Rabinowitz, who's the guy that started the group, Pantera, not the band, the conservation organization. Mike, I was ahead of you on that one. I was getting excited there. He suggested in this book, an indomitable beast, the remarkable journey of a jaguar, a reason for why maybe they don't attack many people. And I do think this is very interesting. So we're going to spend a little extra time on it. All right. Okay. Okay. So the earliest bipedal primates evolved about seven million years ago in Africa. So these are our oldest kind of ancestors that started walking on two lakes and then the earliest Homo species. So like, you know, Homo sapien is what we are, but the earliest of our Homo ancestors. And I don't want to make any jokes about that. Jeff and I were straight faking. I know. We were. I'm sorry. I was hollering you. He mic'er straight. Yeah. They started, they started about two million years ago in Africa. So those early human ancestors were fairly easy prey for the large cats that existed in Africa. Cats like leopards and lions had basically evolved alongside people and existed for millions of years, like in the same places. So we were squarely in their prey category. Like as soon as we started coming down out of trees, they started praying on us. And we evolved alongside each other alongside homos and non-homo. Yeah. Exactly. They don't differentiate. They don't discriminate. It's really nice of them. We don't either. I just want to make that clear. It was only after we developed into more complex societies and started creating technology like spears, bows and arrows, all of that that we managed to really remove ourselves from their prey category and place ourselves more into the threat arena. But a common thought. Piss me off if I was like, what the heck? Yeah. When you see these things and now they kill us. Yeah. Like if an animal did that to us, that suck. A common thought though is because men spent so much time, early man spent so much time with the earliest leopards, lions, tigers, that we spent long enough in their regular prey that some of those instincts have carried through in those cats. And that's why those cats are more likely to occasionally kill humans for food because that instinct has just been baked into their biology. Now the Eurasian jaguar came on the scene in Europe and Asia about two million years ago. That's their oldest kind of diversion from other cats. It's spread throughout Eurasia during that time and then severe climactic disruptions during the Pleistocene. So the Pleistocene is kind of what we refer to as like the Ice Age. That's when we had like mammoths and saber two tigers and all those different animals. That one little mouse with the acorn. The mouse with the acorn. Let's not forget him. He's the one that ended it for us. America. I think you got it. America had like cheetahs and lions too, right? Yeah. And there's some debate over kind of where they evolved from. But exactly. Like this is when we had some pretty crazy animals all over the world and these climactic disruptions caused Eurasian jaguars to disperse further and they first crossed the Bering Land Bridge, which connected Asia and North America about a million years ago. Let's put a pin in that one. That's about when they started coming over to North America. And as they move southward, they spread out through North, Central and South America and more climactic shifts would go on to establish their range throughout what is now the southern part of the United States down through Argentina. So up until a couple hundred years ago, you could find jaguars in like Arizona, New Mexico, California, probably up in Utah even. Yeah. Actually, there is one in Arizona right now that's been hanging out. So they do occasionally still venture into the States, but really their main range now starts in northern Mexico and it goes all the way down into northern Argentina. So humans would only cross the Bering Land Bridge about 20,000 years ago. So again, jaguars crossed it a million years ago and humans only crossed it about 20,000 years ago, which means that North American jaguars essentially spent close to a million years living in the Americas with absolutely no human or intervention, no human contact. And they just pretty much evolved away from humans for most of their history. And when humans did show up, they were already advanced enough to hunt jaguars, to hunt the prey of jaguars. So they were never really seen as prey by these cats. Makes sense. They're really only seen as threats. And that is kind of the best guess as to why jaguars really hardly ever hunt humans. When you do hear about attacks, there are almost always some extenuating circumstances and we don't have these stories of prolific jaguar man eaters like we do with leopards, lions and tigers. Interesting. Yeah. But evolutionary history isn't always enough to overpower the prey drive in a large animal like a jaguar and circumstances can lead to them being potentially very dangerous to humans. Those circumstances can include hunting with dogs, rapid habitat and prey loss, habituation and food conditioning. And that's exactly what was happening with the large jaguar that was waiting patiently outside of Georgia's kitchen on the morning of April 21st, 2025. Like most mornings, George was one of the first up at the small fishing lodge. He quietly hummed to himself as he made his morning coffee. The sun wasn't even up yet, but the light was starting to penetrate into the sky. And as he sipped this really strong Brazilian coffee, he stared out at the Miranda River and the floods of the wet season were starting to recede already. Soon the dry season would bring a lot more visitors, both fishermen and wildlife photographers. And he's really enjoying some of the last few truly quiet moments of the spring as he steps out of the screened in kitchen and into the last few minutes of his life. So the next bit is going to be a bit of a reconstruction of what I kind of feel like probably happened based on evidence that was left behind. There were no direct witnesses to what happened, but there was a lot of evidence. So I'm going to kind of try and piece it together, but just take it with a grain of salt. This could have gone slightly differently from how I'm describing it. The jaguar had been patiently waiting for any hunting opportunity and was ready to kill any dog, cow or human that crossed its path. So when George stepped out of the building and into clear view as he walked toward the river, it stared narrowed in on the 60 year old man. It crept forward slowly and then sprinted. George turned at the sound of fast footfalls behind him and he only had seconds to register the charging Jaguar. He managed to avoid the first charge, start running for the nearest door into the home, which is only a couple dozen feet away, but it could have been a few miles. The Jaguar quickly changed direction and plowed into him. And in one quick motion, it wrapped its large paws with razor sharp claws around his shoulders, pulled his head and his neck toward its mouth. The male Jaguar was already biting the back of George's neck and head by the time they hit the ground together. And he didn't even have time to scream before the powerful bite crushed his vertebrae and skull and rendered him completely motionless, possibly dead. Wow. It then dragged his limp body down this wooden walkway that led to the river where it readjusted its bite and finished killing him only meters from the back stoop of the lodge. When it was certain that he was dead, it continued dragging the body into the nearby jungle where it then began to feed in the darkness of the undergrowth. One of George's neighbors, a local fishing guide, showed up around 9 a.m. and called for his friend, but no one answered. And this guy would routinely come to the lodge to buy some of the honey that they made on the grounds. And when he continued to call for George, but no one answered, he decided to walk around the building to try and find his friend. And as he rounded the house, he immediately noticed a ton of Jaguar prints in the sand, some of them really deep and long and spread out like the track of a Jaguar that was running and jumping. And then he noticed dark stains on the wood of the walkway to the river, as well as George's flip-flop and cell phone. So it doesn't look really good. This guy lives in this area. He kind of pieces together what's going on. So he pulls out his phone and starts recording. And this video is available online. A lot of it on some of the ones I found, it's blurred out, but some of them it's not. So just so you know, if you want to find this, you can. It's not that intense, or it's intense, but it's not that graphic. But pretty much you see him document all the paw prints. He says like, this probably just happened 20 minutes ago. And then there's a large amount of blood on the walkway. And you can see some pieces of tissue and a, there's a piece of human skull. Wow, man. There are drag marks leading into the jungle. And this guy pretty much says this is where it dragged him. This was definitely a Jaguar. He immediately understood what happened. So he called the local authorities and some of the other local guides and fishermen and some of George's family. A search party was quickly mounted. Some of his family helped lead military police and others through the dense jungle surrounding the lodge. They searched the whole day, but as the sun started to dip in the afternoon, they had to postpone the search until the next day. You don't want to be searching for a Jaguar that killed someone at night. The next morning around 10 a.m. part of the search group noticed circling black vultures and the search convened on the area directly underneath those vultures. And there they found the partially consumed and cached body of George. You guys know what cached means? We've said it before on the podcast. Yeah, it's just when predators will like bury a corpse a bit to keep it away from other animals. Hi, that kind of hides it. Cuts down on the scent. Exactly. Mike, it's pretty common in cats, especially, but bears will do it sometimes too. I think you said alligators do it too. Right. Alligators will cash, but for them, I think it's more just kind of saving it for later. It's not so much to like get it away from other things. You ever cash? What'd you have for lunch today, Jeff? Do you cash any of it? Or did you just scarf it all down? I did. I cashed half a pizza. See in your mustache. Buried it in the dirt outside. It'd be so weird if you walk out in your neighbors just like throwing dirt on a pizza. Like a Wendy's bag. It's like, yeah. Nothing. There's nothing there. When they see you just run away. Yeah, they scrawl at you. Spray some for breeze around it. So they found his partially consumed body as they began to inspect it and look for more evidence, a Jaguar rushed from the dense brush and charged the search party. Whoa. One of the men in the search party had to fire at this cat and are treated back into the jungle. I don't believe he hit it. There are theories out there that there was two Jaguars involved in this whole story and that it's unclear which is which. It seemed like there's two of this property for a bit. Right. Yeah. And I did read, I read one article said that one of them was shot and one of them was what we're going to hear about happened to the other one. But I kind of don't know if I believe that article. I feel like it was just one that was involved in all of this. Would that have been a coincidence or do they do they work together sometimes? Or are they often near each other like that? I thought they were kind of more solitary creatures. Sometimes related males after they disperse from their mom, kind of like bears will stick together for a little bit and hunt together and whatnot. But generally once they start mating and they're really like in their prime, they're not males, especially won't hang out with any other Jaguars. They don't know what they're out with their cubs. Bro in the same room while they're mating. Dude, like, you got it over it. You got to get out of here, man. It's a bonding experience. Just Jeff's never invited me. Yeah. Stop trying to invite yourself. I'm just dropping hints. I'm not insisting. Why drop a fortune on basics when you don't have to? Quince has all of the good stuff. They have high quality fabrics, classic fits, lightweight layers from warm weather, all at prices that make sense. And they really do have a lot of stuff. I have been able to buy a number of things from Quince now. 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And that's for me, if like it shows back up, that's probably the one that was responsible. It was a large male. There was a bit malnourished, relatively old, but still in okay shape. There wasn't like what I'm trying to say there is there wasn't like a big injury that would say like, Oh, this is why it was hunting people. It's not like I had like a broken foot or was missing its canines or anything. Like this was a Jaguar that could have hunted natural prey. Okay. Yeah. The detail, sorry, you're probably slow to say. No, no, no, I was just going to ask when the Jaguar rushed at the group or at least the guy who had the gun, that seems unusual to me. It seems like these animals aren't usually trying to get into it with humans at the very least. Like is this just like an extra aggressive one or I know. So that's that's kind of the the contradictory thing about Jaguars is they don't really attack people that much. But from what I've heard when they're cornered, they are like gnarlier than any other cat. Like they just really put on a big display and really get super angry when they're in a bad situation. I remember we went to the Hogle Zoo once when I was a kid, when they had Jaguars and the zookeeper said that if that if the Jaguar got out, it would be the animal that would do the most damage. Really? She was like, that is our animal that would do the most. Yeah, which I thought was really interesting. So I don't think that's at all abnormal, especially where it was probably trying to guard its kill. It doesn't seem strange at all to me. I watched a lot of interviews with experts that investigated this case. They talked to locals. They were all pretty confident that there was some feeding going on and that the cat had become food conditioned or at the very least habituated. And I do think it's important to note that George's family denies any feeding whatsoever. And they say that there's no way that he would have fed these animals. This didn't happen very long ago. They're still reeling from this, I'm sure. And I don't want to leave the impression that he was like bad in any way. He was a beloved member of this community. People absolutely loved him. He cared deeply about the Pantanal. And I do think it's important that we realize that sometimes feeding and these sort of mistakes with wildlife are much more commonplace in countries like Brazil. And like it is illegal to feed jaguars, but I've been to lodges where they feed ocelots to bring them in, where they feed different animals so that people can have this experience with them. And it's somewhat accepted in Brazil and it brings a lot of money toward conservation and ecotourism. So it's kind of a tricky subject. Yeah, because like probably not great to feed wild animals, but also like money talks helps. It helps protect them. Yeah. And like a lot of us feed birds. I mean, you have a bird feeder. I have bird feeders and we kind of have accepted that that's OK. And I don't even do it for the money. Yeah. And they're just for the love of the game. Yeah. And there are some detrimental effects to even feeding birds. So I've really had to come to terms with that, because when I went to the ocelot one, I was like, oh, this seems wrong. But then the more I thought about it, I was like, an ocelot's not going to hurt anyone. It's not going to do any wrong. A lot of people get to see this one ocelot now that's food conditioned and it kind of protects all the other ocelots in the area. So it's kind of a sacrificial lamb in a way. But I do think where you, for me, where I would draw the line with that is where you're feeding animals that can do damage or harm to people. Sure. Yeah. That makes sense. No, it's the kind of the layman of the podcast. Before we started doing this four or five years ago, whenever it was, I wouldn't really have had any misgivings about it. Like I don't know if I would have fed an animal like that. But if I saw someone else doing that, it wouldn't have even really registered on my radar, really. Like, yeah, I just don't. I wouldn't judge anybody is I guess what I'm saying. Yeah, just for not having. I would have that knowledge. I think I would have, but I think I've come a long way on kind of understanding that different countries do things differently. But I do think it's good that feeding jaguars is illegal in Brazil. Yeah, sure. And ultimately it may have cost this man his life, which is far too big of a price in my opinion. OK, do you guys have any questions about the story? That's sad, man. That it's really taking the footage and wandering down. I just can't imagine seeing your friend like a portion of his skull. And it's just like so grisly. That's that's really tough. And kind of like with an animal that you have just come to see as not being a threat, you know, like, you know, deep down that they could kill you, but you've just kind of learned like it's not ever going to do it. Then suddenly that just shatters that whole reality for you. So yeah, it's it's pretty gnarly. It's very sad and our hearts go out to George, how do you say George? George and his family. But I don't know, the story is I think it's kind of the reason jaguars have been my favorite animal for the majority of my life, too, is just like it was so good at killing. Like once it put its mind to it, you know, is just like the way they can just like bite through a skull is insane. Yeah, I do think if you're going to be killed by a big cat, this is one of the ones that's going to do it the quickest. Yeah. Yeah, they're amazing animals. And I was really impressed that the people that responded to this wanted to sedate it. And it's from what I learned, it went to like like a rehab center and it's never going back out in the wild, but it'll probably be used in some sort of like wildlife rehabilitation purpose for education. So yeah, I do think it was impressive to me that it wasn't just like we have to kill all the jaguars in the area as quickly as possible. That's great. Yeah. I like that you did this story and our listeners going to Brazil with us in a couple of days will probably hear it like on their plane ride to our trip. I'm specifically going to tell them to listen to it. I do like I once I was on a boat in the Pantanal and there was a jaguar off the front of the boat. I was on the very front and it was 10 feet away from me in the water. And I remember thinking I am far too comfortable with this cat. It's kind of like the crocodile in Borneo. Dude, like this thing could kill me if it wanted to right now. And I wouldn't even be able to react. And no one has a gun. No one has any way to stop it. And like we need to remember that, you know, that they they have this potential. That wouldn't have made for a very good react video on YouTube. Just not even able to react at all. Yeah. It's not even able to make the face. It seems like one of the animals to where like having help around you. I mean, it's always good to have like people around you. But it seems like one of the animals where you have the least amount of time to actually save the person being attacked. Like you might save them, but they might be paralyzed for the rest of their life. Or yeah, exactly. All right. Well, with that then, I think we're going to leave our story and move on to categories. I have some really interesting conservation stuff to talk about. But let's see. Be the judge of that. Yeah. All right. So the first category is your favorite media from Brazil, from a Brazilian or anything that even mentions Brazil. So just any kind of pop culture that is Brazil focused. I said a Brazilian because there's lots of like famous Brazilian songwriters like. Well, I was thinking of like the Brazilian wax job and 40 year old virgin. But I'm going to go with just the Brazilian national soccer team. As a kid, I was obsessed with soccer. I was obsessed with Brazil, especially. And it's always been because like their style of soccer is the most entertaining to watch. They don't always win it, but they do win a lot of World Cups. And like they just seem to always have the most exciting player in the tournament or like the person who can do like the coolest footwork. And I love watching their national team play the World Cup. Who's your favorite Brazilian soccer player? Do you think ever? I mean, growing up, I was loved Pele. Even though I didn't really watch him. But I guess I'd probably have to go with Neymar. Like Neymar is interesting. He is cool. We're like all through high school. I was on the soccer team like we all just practiced all day long. The Ronaldinho trick. Yeah, just an incredible football player. That Ronaldo like free kick where he kicks it like. 40 yards away. It's incredible. I'm going to go with I never have gotten all the way into Brazilian music very much. But I got introduced to Seyuz George through Life Aquatic. He's doing the David Bowie music. Yeah, oh man. And that's kind of like my entry way into the music. I think it probably like Brazil soul. I don't even know Samba. Yeah, it's a it's a doorway. I haven't all the way walked through yet, but there is a doorway to it. It's going to be Seyuz. I love that guy. He's amazing. Have you listened to his non David Bowie covers? Yeah, Samba music. I just absolutely love it. I lived in Brazil. I speak Portuguese and they have some really, really bad music there that I just hate. That's kind of like almost like a dubstep kind of thing. But man, Samba, especially like good classic Samba just really hits for me like nothing else. So I really like it. I picked the movie City of God, which is directed by Fernando Mireles and Cachialund. It's an incredible movie. I think it holds with like all of the great crime movies of the last, you know, 50 years. It every time I watch it, I just get totally immersed in it. It's such a beautiful story about life in the favela in Rio and kind of talks about how the favelas were even created. And it's just a really interesting window into that part of Brazilian life. And for those of you who don't know, the favelas kind of like the shanty towns that you see built on the hillsides in Brazil. Yeah, the rock runs over the top of them in Fast and Furious 5. Exactly. That's how you'll probably know them, Jeff. In Fast 5 is like one of the only the first time that they're allowed to like film an American movie in a favela. So is that true? Bad Boys 2 is where they really go for that. In Brazil? I don't think it's Brazil. OK. But they like just drive hummers through like they kill like 400 people. Just driving hummers through house after house after house. All right. Next category. Craziest thing that you ever personally captured on a video. Fast 5 would have been a good answer for that, actually. It's a great idea. What of? Or Brazil by Terry Gilliam. Now I'm talking about it. I couldn't think of a good one for this. Yeah. I mean, you guys know that I rarely ever have a camera out. I did film myself once trying to jump over a fence. And I completely cased it like I hit my the tip of my toe on the top banister and just face on it on the grass. I could I could probably find that if we want to post it somewhere. But you filmed it. Yeah, I just set up like a tripod. It was it was like I haven't got no idea why it was when I was like 23 years old. It's weird. I don't know what that was all about. I have a lot of good ones featuring you, Jeff. But I guess you didn't record them personally. Like the vine in Hawaii. Yeah, I've got some good. You want. Yeah. But OK, for me, mine is definitely well, not definitely, but the one that comes to mind is the moose being chased by the grizzly bear that I recorded last year. Yeah, kind of like lucked into I was recording a moose that like ran at the front of my car. And then it turned and looked behind it. And I knew something was about to come out of the woods and turn off a big grizzly bear, chased it out. And that was pretty cool. You texted us. You called it. You're like, I just took a video that's going to go viral. You know, right? By far my most viral video. I had like a few people send me that video without knowing the context that you took it. Yeah, I had a lot of people send it to me. Not knowing that I took it. Yeah. Yeah, that's my video. OK, the next one that I wanted you guys to do was because I think both of you are probably going to see your last big cat. I'm curious what your next group of animals you would want to bucket list is. So for me, I think it's sharks. Like I have four or five shark species that I really want to see. And then I'll be I'll feel like I've seen like the sharks that I wanted to see. Yeah, I'll take that was my knee, Derek. Bears. See, we just sold China. I don't think we're going to actually, but we're doing panda stuff. We're going to we're going to see pandas as much in the wild as you can really do, which is in that like research center. No one else really sees them anywhere else. So yeah, what will you have besides pandas? Spectacle. Quite a bit still. Spectacled. Asiatic black polar for Jeff. Well, yeah, I guess that's true. After we see pandas, I'll just have sun and Asiatic black sun almost feels like those are the ones that we saw in Borneo, right? In the wildlife reserve. That almost seems like a panda situation. The way Kurt was our guide was talking about him. Like it's so rare in Borneo, but there's other places. I was the easiest to find. Even like in what wasn't it Taiwan where the whole airport had like sun bears? And no, that's Asiatic black bears, right? Remember that airport that had like the paintings of bears all over? Yeah, yeah. And there there you can find them in like Japan, a few different countries where Asiatic black bears are a little land of the rising sun. Bear. Cool. Mike, it's sharks for you as well. Yeah, my backup was I want to try every kind of fruit. OK, I'm a big fruit fan. Yeah, I like fruit. All right, you do. Free guy. Spots or stripes? What do you guys think? Me, jerk, answer. Stripe for me, it's spots. Celebrity doppelganger. So what celebrity reminds you most of a jaguar or play a jaguar in the the movie? I picked Dave Batista. Oh, interesting. OK, just like a solid dense muscular kind of guy. Something about the head reminds me of a jaguar head somehow. Yeah, like the kind of chunky jaw and stuff. Very strong, I guess, basically. I went along the same lines as you, but I think he was too big. Like he's like too physically like he's a lion for me or a tiger. So I picked Tom Hardy for a jaguar. Because I feel like he's a little bit stockier and not as tall. But just like still bulky, but also very handsome, you know, so he kind of like has all the things that I associate with the jaguar. Well, Dave's got his own allure. He does. I think they're the most beautiful cat. So I went with Anna DeArmas. Just like both have like really strikingly like hazel eyes. They both seem pretty nice when you look at them. They're like that. I would, you know, you're like, I would touch that when you see. Sure. Right. But then it's like, but then it's like, oh, they got some bite to him too. I find yeah. Ballerina. Yeah. We've seen that. Maybe. Yeah, right. Anna DeArmas is hanging out with Tom Cruise too. He'll kick your ass. You should food condition Anna DeArmas, Jeff, to see if that gets you in. Or maybe she'll kill you. I'm pretty happy with my. I don't know. I wouldn't mind being killed by Anna DeArmas. Yeah. Um, she does that like thing where she wraps her legs around your neck and chokes you out. I'm going to die. Happy man. Like in golden eye. Yeah. Right. All right. I got a few listener questions here from our Patreon. This one is from Jamie. I just finished this one for me. I just finished in harm's way. I immediately mass text my family and posted the Facebook link to the podcast and the book. Thank you. I ordered left for dead and about to start the other. I'm just curious, which was your favorite? These are the books about the USS Indianapolis. My favorite was actually in harm's way, the one that you finished, but the other two are also great. And sorry, I said your whole name will have Mike cut out your last name. Someone finder, if you don't like. Pressure. Stealer identity. No, I have to actually edit this episode with care. That's real. This one's from Rekha. Rekha says, what's your favorite type of citation? You guys remember what citations are? Wales. Wales. Yeah. A killer one. Orca. Is that a citation? Yeah. There you go, baby. Lock it in. Final answer. Family feud points. What? Number one option, right? Probably a hundred billion points. Jeff, what's yours? Steve Harvey, where we got to get that guy on the line? I don't know. Citations. I know citations. Oh, Wales. Wales and Dolphins. All Wales and Dolphins. I mean, Mike took Orca. Yeah. Humpbacks. I like Humpbacks. Like, I think of all the Wales that would be my saddest if they didn't exist just because they're cool. There's a company whose whole commercial strategy is showing Humpbacks breaching. And they've been doing it forever. And it's like, I like that Pacific life. I'll buy whatever they're selling. Yeah. I love Humpbacks. They were up there for me. I have to go with Grey Wales. It's the whale that I've spent the most time around. We've been on trips where we got to actually like scratch them and kiss them. So I think I just have like more of a bond with them than any other whale. Humpback might actually be number one over even killer whale on Family Feud. People are really into Humpbacks. Yeah. Or Blue Whale might be up there. That's why Anna DeArmas isn't a Grey Whale because like Grey Whales, you can just touch them on the head. They don't care. Anna DeArmas, I think if you just went and touched her on the head, she'd be like more like a Jaguar. But in half. Yeah. It's good. This one's from Katie. Katie says, how many flamingos could you take in a fight? This is my husband's favorite question to ask. And while he isn't a listener, I thought it would be the right place to ask the question. You could close line like a million flamingos so easily. Yes. Larry at Tackle. Here's the thing. We've talked about like the toddler version of this question a few times. How many toddlers could you take? And we all just saw weapons and like those kids can do some damage. You know, those kids, those kids were like demonically. I don't know. They're a little older. But yeah, they were. I'm just saying like once you get a big group of something, they start to get you pretty overwhelmed. I'm just going to say seven. I feel like flamingos, it's as many until I get too tired to punch anymore. Punching would be a hard thing to do to a flamingo. They got their little head. Dude, flamingos would be so good at bobbing and weaving and boxing. That's true. They're just like. Yeah. You get tired so fast. I would hazard to guests to say, Wes, you're not even going to be able to land a single punch on a flamingo. Okay. I also though, like just grabbing them then and putting them in like headlocks and giving them noogies and stuff. I feel like I could still taste hundreds of flamingos. Indian burn on the neck. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I'm going to go with 64. Yeah, that's a good. That's a good number. If they're coordinated, if they're all, that's the whole question, you know, like are they coming at once or are they just acting like normal flamingos? You know, you know what they call a group of flamingos? We're going to be recording my subscriber episode shortly and it's going to be about flamingos. So I've been learning about them a little bit. All right. Okay. I don't know. A flamboyance. A flamboyance of flamingos. That's perfect for them. Yeah. Okay. This one's from Ben. Ben says, Ben enjoying your podcast forever. Ben, you totally dunked on yourself there. Funny. Never thought to ask a question. If you could erase one song from existence, we never have to endure listening to it again. What song would it be? Minus Sweet Caroline. Uh, what song would you guys get rid of? A Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney. I can't believe that he was involved in writing a song. Do you want to do that? That caliber? Yeah, it's so bumpy. It's so bad. I, yeah. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time. That's brutal. I don't think I can stand to listen to it even one more time. Yeah, that is a rough one. I have a really cute video of Jesse dancing to that one. Like to her phone that it kind of has endeared that song to me. But yeah, I love Paul too. I love the Beatles. I love Paul. He just, everyone, you know, we all miss fire sometimes. Yeah. Like my, right now my knee jerk is this song that Jeff and my dad kept singing on our float trip. That was my answer too. I'm ready to play today. Oh, center field. Yeah. It was stuck in my head the entire trip. They played it in the car ride on the trip. So that was like the last thing in my brain once we went into the wilderness where you'd like have no connection to anything. And it was just like, I don't know, something about being in the wilderness without like technology, like your brain just starts reaching for it wherever it could get it. And that song was the last thing. And I, I am with Wes. Yeah, that's top of mind right now. So I would love to get rid of baby shark too. Someone he knew, like put that in for their song to be played at their funeral, which I've really lingered on a lot. All right. Well, that's it for Patreon questions today. So I do have some interesting conservation stuff that I wanted to talk about. And I'm going to try and do this like in a delicate way, because I think there's inferences you could draw from what I'm saying that would necessarily be true. But it's again from that book, An Indomitable Beast by Alan Rabinowitz. And this was really interesting to me. And I just wanted to talk about it. But basically when these indigenous people of the Americas, when they arrived 20,000 years ago on the Beringland Bridge, they too slowly spread out through the continents. And over time, we had people like the Olmec, the Maya, the Aztec, the Inca that built civilizations in Central and Southern America or South America. And this was over thousands of years. These these civilizations mostly existed independent of each other. But at the height of some of these civilizations, the thing that I think sometimes we don't realize is that there were thought to be tens of millions, even up to a hundred million people living throughout Central and South America and some of these civilizations. So a lot of people have. It's crazy how much like attention the pyramids get when like you look in Central America and Mexico and it's like they got pyramids everywhere. Right. And like, you don't think aliens built those? Yeah. I do. There are there are some there's some estimates that up to five million people lived in the Amazon alone at the time of Columbus's arrival in the new world. So just like a quick disclaimer here, I personally strongly believe that indigenous people are almost always the best conservationists, the best guardians, the most invested in their own lands. I think people that are from places tend to care about those places the most. And there are studies out there that show when we turn over conservation to indigenous groups, they tend to do a much better job. But what that doesn't mean is that every ancient indigenous society existed in total harmony with nature. I think that's kind of almost like a weird stereotype that we've come up with that like every indigenous society is just like totally in harmony with all the animals and plants and everything that's not necessarily the case. Sure. The Maya, for example, did a ton of natural resource extraction and actually devastated a lot of the areas where they built their cities and communities. I think of Apocalypto actually, you remember where they like catch Jaguar Paw and they're bringing them to that big city and the closer they get, like the more kind of destroyed and gross everything is. There's actually some some science behind that. The Maya weren't that great necessarily with foresight into like destroying natural resources. So even though it seems like a little crazy to think of Jaguar as being in trouble that long ago, they were actually being pushed out a lot of their prime habitat during the time of the Maya, the Aztec and the Inca. When Europeans arrived in the New World, they wreaked absolute devastation on the indigenous people of the Americas. And that was mostly through introduction of diseases and parasites. And this was genocide. This was destruction of these societies at the hands of these invaders that thought they were doing it in God's name. It's without a doubt one of the most heinous things that's ever happened in the history of the world, but there may have been a bit of a silver lining for Jaguars. A lot of those human communities that suffered the greatest losses were ones that were located in prime Jaguar habitat. And after those people were gone, the European invaders, these Europeans didn't necessarily want to set up settlements like in the jungle or the wetlands. So they kind of left a lot of the wilderness alone. And so to put it kind of bluntly with far less people in these areas where Jaguars lived, they kind of got a bit of a reprieve from any kind of human interference. And that actually helped them avoid a lot of the slaughter that happened to other big cats around the world during the second millennium. Does that make sense? Before like humans really put their footprint on the Americas. Yeah. What do you think would be like the best Jaguar territory? Is it still like the Pontonol area? Probably. But it was pretty good throughout. I mean, like there was a lot of like, and that's the thing is Jaguars in different parts of their range specialize on different prey. So in places like northern Mexico, you're going to see them eating a lot of like Javalina and deer. But in in the Pontonol, they almost solely came in and Capybara and a few other things. But I did think this was really interesting that this terrible, awful thing that happened, which is the slaughter that Europeans brought to the Americas kind of gave Jaguars this long period of time where they didn't really have to exist around people. And it saved them from really a lot of the destruction that happened to some of the other big cats. Now that ramped back up after the Industrial Revolution. They faced a lot of threats, killing for their skins, killing from fear of predators, competition, tons of habitat loss. But their numbers were so much higher than a lot of the other big cats that we still have a lot of Jaguars. There's thought to be around one hundred and seventy thousand Jaguars current alive currently alive in the world. Look at tigers. It's like, yeah, tigers. It's like five thousand. Yeah. So it's a lot more. Yeah. But they are under some really serious threats. They are highly at risk. One of the main ones being habitat loss and fragmentation. So when you have these fragmented populations, hot spots of Jaguars, but there's no way for them to pass in between. Do you guys remember what happens to those kind of populations? No. So when they have these kind of island populations with no movement in between, there's no gene flow. And that means that you don't have really robust genetic material. And when that happens, they become really susceptible to disease and to different problems that they otherwise would be protected against. So it's really kind of a dangerous situation that we have these little pockets of Jaguars. It just it puts them at much higher risk because you don't know that. That's like the main problem with the orangutans, right? Exactly. Had a lot of like, yeah. They're cut off from each other. Trees cut out by the territories. Climate change is also a big problem facing Jaguars. You guys are going to see this firsthand when we go to the Pantanal. But it's been drastically changed by issues like drought and wildfire. And the Amazon's the same way. And those are the two biggest strongholds for Jaguars are the Pantanal and the Amazon. Isn't there like a strategy with Brazilian ranchers and like conservatives to like conservation, intentionally have fires in the Amazon to like be able to grow their ranches and cattle ranches and like grow there because like their laws allow them to like take over fire areas. So then they purposely cause fires or something. Yeah. Lighting the fires is illegal. But once they're lit and all that area is destroyed, there's no one really stopping them from turning it into ranch land. And that happens a lot. And the fires have gotten really devastating as things have dried out. So there's been a lot of pressure to stop people from lighting fires, which is going to help Jaguars. Hopefully a new thing that's kind of happening is their parts are starting to be traded as imitation tiger parts in the Chinese medicine trade. That's not in China. Yeah. So that's extra dumb because Jaguars are already cool enough. No animal is cool enough that their parts should be in demand for themselves. But that's right. That is imitation tigers. Yeah. And then human wildlife conflict too. We lose them because of ranchers shooting them, attacking cattle or anything like that. So there are a lot of threats facing them. So even though we have a lot more Jaguars than we do some of the other big cats, they have this unique kind of perfect storm happening to where a lot of biologists are worried about their long term survival. I wish China would just start being like, oh, mosquitoes make great medicine. Let's start taking all the mosquitoes from them. You know what we should eat is rocks. Let's see rocks and grass. We should just when we're over there, we should just start like, like bump someone and be like, hey, I heard those rocks over there. We'll give you a boner if you eat them and maybe it'll take off. No, you got to give yourself a boner, then eat a rock and like let them see that eating that rock got you to have a boner. Yeah. All right. You guys have any questions about their conservation? I just hope we figure it out. I hope Jaguars end up good. I was really scared after last year's Pantanal trip, but I do think the droughts improved a little bit. So we'll see. We'll see this week. All right. Well, I just want you we've ranked them before with claws. I just want to hear where they fall in your current big cat rankings. Before prior to the trip, I want to know where they're at. I'm going to keep them at two for right now. I think they're going to quickly retake the number one spot, if not number one overall animal. What's your first cat right now? Cheetah cheetah cheetah. That's so Tiger cheetah Jaguar for me or my three top three. Yeah. My top three are right now are Tiger Puma Jaguar, but I think right now Jaguars are one. Wow. Nice. Jaguar Club. Yeah, I think I like how when we were in Africa, I told you that when I hear cheetah, I think of Jurassic Park and Chuta. Chuta. And now you always think of cheetah. Like when I told you that, you're like, yeah, I guess so. And now you still like have that in your brain. I'm more, I think of Tanya Haddock saying, Pita, Pita. Quick update on her prison idiot. Oh yeah, she's back in prison. Are we allowed to call her like a stupid crazy idiot? Right. Let's say that for our news episode. But let's leave that clip in there. Yeah, we'll leave that in there. Oh, I forgot about still. We weren't allowed to say that. I don't know if we're allowed to say what we weren't allowed to say on the HBO partnership. Yeah, all my stuff got cut. I just have a whole lot of internal strife still. I want, I need to get some stuff off about her too. So we'll go and do it more in our news episode. All right. I guess I'll put, I think Jaguars are kind of the one that fill my number one when I haven't seen another big cat for a minute. But it's kind of a revolving door for me. But right now Jaguars are number one. All right. Well, we'll see you guys in a couple of days on our way to Brazil and we love all you listeners. Love you. And we'll talk to you later. Eagle sore at 30 miles an hour. There you go. Nice. All right. Bye. See you. See ya.