In Brazil's wetlands, jaguars face a new threat: drug traffickers

In Brazil's wetlands, jaguars face a new threat: drug traffickers

Ranchers who once killed the big cats are now joining with conservationists to save them

September 7, 2014 5:00AM ET
by Eva Hershaw

THE PANTANAL, Brazil — On the morning of March 29, Sally was found floating in the Cuiabá River. Lifeless and bloated, her body was slowly drifting toward Bolivia when local ranch hands pulled her ashore. In the nape of her neck were two deep, round wounds. Members of the ranch staff took photos, called the local police and waited for the authorities to remove the body.

A quick autopsy revealed that Sally had likely been killed the day prior, shot from above at close range with a .38-caliber handgun. She was one of three jaguars fatally shot in the Brazilian Pantanal in the first six months of this year. The isolated river delta in central-western Brazil is home to the world’s largest population of jaguars, with an estimated nine per 50 square miles.

The news sent shock waves through the ranches and tourist lodges that dot the flooded Pantanal and conservation organizations overseas, many of which have made the region’s jaguars a focus of their work. Within an hour, the jaguar had been identified from photos taken in 2013 by a tourist — Sally’s namesake —showing unusual markings along the left side of her torso. Within a week, a local ranch had put up a $1,000 reward for any information related to her death. As puzzlement and suspicions grew, conservationists abroad offered to chip in. The reward climbed to $2,000. A conviction carried the possibility of a five-year prison sentence without the possibility of parole and a $5,000 fine.

“Whenever we find a jaguar body, we are always suspicious,” said Alexandre do Nascimento, the military police chief in Corumbá, a small gateway town to the Pantanal along the Bolivian border. His team is among those assigned to investigate the case. For decades, jaguars in the Pantanal were hunted by skin traders and sought as trophies by foreigners on safari. But Sally’s body was intact. Pantaneiros, the hearty swampland ranchers who for more than 250 years killed the jaguars that preyed on their livestock, would have been sure to dispose of the body.

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