minister. He had given me an appointment with the cabinet. They had given me fifteen minutes. They had no idea what I was going to say to them. Frankly I’m sure they gave me the appointment because they just wanted to meet this crazy foreigner who was in the jungle catching jaguars.
I had fifteen minutes. I couldn’t stutter. I couldn’t stutter. I couldn’t distract them from the point of trying to save jaguars. I had to use everything I had learned and be a completely fluent speaker and convince one of the poorest countries in Central America—no protected areas in the entire country at that time, a place where tourism wasn’t even of economic benefit, ecotourism wasn’t even a term at the time—that they had to save jaguars.
An hour and a half later I came out of there, amidst laughter, backslaps. The prime minister and the cabinet had voted to set up the world’s first and only jaguar preserve. And I promisedthem I would make it work. I promised them I could show them it would be of economic benefit.
A month later, I was in the jungle following my jaguars. You never see jaguars. If they can be seen, they’ll be killed, so the most prominent evidence of jaguars is their tracks. I knew all my jaguars in the study area from their tracks. But this one day when I was in there, trying to see where they were all going and what they were all doing, I crossed a completely new track. It was the biggest male jaguar I had ever seen in my life, the biggest track. I knew I had to follow him, hoping I could catch a glimpse, but at least find out what he was doing in here, whether he had come in from the outside. Was he passing through? I followed him for hours, glued on those tracks, until I realized it was getting dark, and I didn’t want to be caught in the jungle at night without a flashlight. So I turned around to go back to camp.
As soon as I turned around, there he was, not fifteen feet behind me. That jaguar, which I had been following, had circled around and was following me as I was following him. He could have killed me at any time. I didn’t even hear him.
I knew I should feel frightened, but I didn’t. Instinctively I just squatted down, and the jaguar sat. And I looked into this jaguar’s eyes, and I was so clearly reminded of the little boy looking into the face of that sad old jaguar at the Bronx Zoo. But this animal wasn’t sad. In this animal’s eyes there was strength. And power. And sureness of purpose. I also realized, as I was looking into his eyes, that what I was seeing was a reflection of the way I was feeling too. That little broken boy and that old broken jaguar were now this. Hah.
Suddenly I felt scared. I knew I should be scared. And I stood up and took a step back. The jaguar stood up too, turned, and started to walk off into the forest. After about ten feet, itstopped, and turned to look back at me. I looked at the jaguar. And I leaned a little towards it, the way I had at the Bronx Zoo so many years before, and I whispered to it: “It’s OK now. It’s all going to be OK.”
And the jaguar turned and was gone. Thank you.
Dr. Alan Rabinowitz is the CEO of Panthera, a non-profit dedicated to saving the world’s wild cat species. Dr. Rabinowitz is one of the world’s leading big cat experts and has been called the “Indiana Jones of Wildlife Conservation” by
TIME
. He has authored over one hundred scientific and popular articles and six books, including
Jaguar: One Man’s Struggle to Establish the First Jaguar Preserve; Chasing the Dragon’s Tail: The Struggle to Save Thailand’s Wild Cats; Beyond the Last Village: A Journey of Discovery in Asia’s Forbidden Wilderness;
and, most recently,
Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold, and Greed
. He has been profiled in
The New York Times, Scientific American, Audubon, Men’s Journal, Newsweek, Outside, Explorer, The Jerusalem Report
, and
National Geographic Adventure Magazine
, and has
I had fifteen minutes. I couldn’t stutter. I couldn’t stutter. I couldn’t distract them from the point of trying to save jaguars. I had to use everything I had learned and be a completely fluent speaker and convince one of the poorest countries in Central America—no protected areas in the entire country at that time, a place where tourism wasn’t even of economic benefit, ecotourism wasn’t even a term at the time—that they had to save jaguars.
An hour and a half later I came out of there, amidst laughter, backslaps. The prime minister and the cabinet had voted to set up the world’s first and only jaguar preserve. And I promisedthem I would make it work. I promised them I could show them it would be of economic benefit.
A month later, I was in the jungle following my jaguars. You never see jaguars. If they can be seen, they’ll be killed, so the most prominent evidence of jaguars is their tracks. I knew all my jaguars in the study area from their tracks. But this one day when I was in there, trying to see where they were all going and what they were all doing, I crossed a completely new track. It was the biggest male jaguar I had ever seen in my life, the biggest track. I knew I had to follow him, hoping I could catch a glimpse, but at least find out what he was doing in here, whether he had come in from the outside. Was he passing through? I followed him for hours, glued on those tracks, until I realized it was getting dark, and I didn’t want to be caught in the jungle at night without a flashlight. So I turned around to go back to camp.
As soon as I turned around, there he was, not fifteen feet behind me. That jaguar, which I had been following, had circled around and was following me as I was following him. He could have killed me at any time. I didn’t even hear him.
I knew I should feel frightened, but I didn’t. Instinctively I just squatted down, and the jaguar sat. And I looked into this jaguar’s eyes, and I was so clearly reminded of the little boy looking into the face of that sad old jaguar at the Bronx Zoo. But this animal wasn’t sad. In this animal’s eyes there was strength. And power. And sureness of purpose. I also realized, as I was looking into his eyes, that what I was seeing was a reflection of the way I was feeling too. That little broken boy and that old broken jaguar were now this. Hah.
Suddenly I felt scared. I knew I should be scared. And I stood up and took a step back. The jaguar stood up too, turned, and started to walk off into the forest. After about ten feet, itstopped, and turned to look back at me. I looked at the jaguar. And I leaned a little towards it, the way I had at the Bronx Zoo so many years before, and I whispered to it: “It’s OK now. It’s all going to be OK.”
And the jaguar turned and was gone. Thank you.
Dr. Alan Rabinowitz is the CEO of Panthera, a non-profit dedicated to saving the world’s wild cat species. Dr. Rabinowitz is one of the world’s leading big cat experts and has been called the “Indiana Jones of Wildlife Conservation” by
TIME
. He has authored over one hundred scientific and popular articles and six books, including
Jaguar: One Man’s Struggle to Establish the First Jaguar Preserve; Chasing the Dragon’s Tail: The Struggle to Save Thailand’s Wild Cats; Beyond the Last Village: A Journey of Discovery in Asia’s Forbidden Wilderness;
and, most recently,
Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold, and Greed
. He has been profiled in
The New York Times, Scientific American, Audubon, Men’s Journal, Newsweek, Outside, Explorer, The Jerusalem Report
, and
National Geographic Adventure Magazine
, and has
Similar Books
