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I've spent much of my working life trying to film big cats.

I've watched them in the wild and analysed the footage in the editing room,

which has given me a real insight into their behaviour.

Today, we can see these amazing predators on our screens any time we choose.

But until quite recently, we knew practically nothing about them.

Big cats are normally shy and very secretive.

Today, their populations are shrinking fast.

But now we have the means to view them in more detail than ever.

And learn the intricacies of their lives.

Which is just as well, because we need to find ways of

living alongside them before they disappear forever.

My efforts to film jaguars began 25 years ago in a place

called Nancite Beach on Costa Rica's Pacific coast.

When Nancite was included in a newly created Santa Rosa National Park in 1971,

jaguars were rarely seen here, if at all.

When I arrived to make a film about coatis, I knew that it was technically

possible to see a jaguar and hoped to include it in the film.

Over a period of four months, there wasn't so much as a footage.

I had to make a film about a jaguar, a jaguar that was very different.

I now realized that the presence of coatis and a pack of coyotes

almost meant that by definition there were no jaguars here.

Incredibly, at the time there was very little research about jaguars.

Most of their behavior was a mystery.

The first jaguar scientists struggled to get anywhere near their subjects.

There are now a couple of places in the world where

seeing a wild jaguar is a possibility rather than a dream.

Recently, there were reports of jaguar footprints on the beach here.

And of course, I had to visit.

The jaguar is one of the most elusive of all the cats.

Until ten years ago, it was practically unfilmed in the wild.

Compared to the other big cats, it is one of the least well-known and most

secretive, crafty, and perfectly camouflaged.

Jaguars have spent far more time watching humans from behind

a bush than humans have managed to spend watching jaguars.

It's easy to confuse the jaguar with a

leopard, but they're surprisingly different.

At 50% heavier than the average leopard, with shorter legs and a bigger tail,

and a much shorter tail, jaguars also hunt different prey.

Its physique is in fact more tiger-like, with

powerful jaws and powerful front legs and shoulders.

For a large predator like the jaguar, the remote

shoreline of Nansite offers slim pickings.

The total area of Bishan forest here is little more than two square kilometres.

So it would typically make up just a fraction of the average jaguar territory.

And the chances of actually seeing a jaguar here would at best be tiny.

But here in Nansite, there are plenty of other predators

and scavengers hanging around, as if waiting for something.

The presence of so many jaguar tracks suggests something unusual is going on.

But filming wild jaguars is one of the hardest things I've ever done.

The latest high-resolution camera traps gave

us a chance to see jaguars in the forest.

But in daylight, all they revealed were nervous animals.

No jaguars.

So we set up on the beach in the hope we could get a clear view at night.

And waited.

And waited.

Using only red light to see with.

And super-sensitive starlight cameras to film with.

Without a moon, it's so dark.

That even the bioluminescent glow of waves is visible.

But the starlight camera struggles to see detail.

With the help of infrared light, we can get a clearer view.

And the thermal camera allows us to see anything that moves on the ground.

And we can see anything that moves on the beach.

A family of raccoons emerges to dig up turtle eggs.

Nancite is a turtle-nesting beach.

Which is one reason why the American Crocodile is hanging around.

But at this time of year, the nesting season is almost over.

Generally, only a few single nesters come ashore.

This is an Olive Ridley, the smallest of the sea turtles.

They're much faster to nest than other sea turtles.

So any predator has to find them quickly, in the darkness.

For a brief moment, the thermal camera on the clifftop spots a jaguar on the beach.

It returns to the scrub at the edge of the beach, as if on the trail of something.

My own feeble human vision can barely see the turtle at close range.

Although cat vision is more sensitive, it's

unlikely a jaguar could see this from a distance.

But the distinctive sound of flippers slapping on the

hard sand could be a giveaway to super-sensitive hearing.

Human ears could hardly detect this sound above the waves.

But I have observed coyotes react to it.

They're small sounds in the surf, a big distance away.

And if coyotes can do this, why not cats?

But it's not until the turtle is actually nesting that the jaguar makes its move.

The turtles seem to enter a trance-like state, as if they

were unaware of their surroundings and any threats to them.

Their defenses are designed for sharks, not land predators.

The jaguar kills the turtle with a bite to the neck, cutting the reptile's jugular.

And the turtle is completely helpless.

But the truly remarkable thing about Nancite

is that it isn't home to just one jaguar.

We now know that as many as eight big cats can visit this beach in one night.

And the biggest males will always take what they want.

Small females have to give way.

When faced with a male twice their size.

When there are few turtles, there is competition.

And of course it's not just jaguars they need to worry about.

These cats don't like to be out in the open when they feel there's a threat.

Now the male drags the turtle towards the forest.

Jaguars have been known to eat almost anything and

have been referred to as dustbins of the forest.

Here they specialize in turtles.

The cats were so relaxed we got to witness

at close range their phenomenal jaw strength.

Jaguars are said to have the most powerful bite of all the big cats.

Which could be why they're so adaptable.

Even when they took their kills into thick undergrowth,

we were still able to follow them with trap cams.

The remote images reveal that each kill lasts about three days.

And once the ants have found it, it's just too painful to eat.

Unless the jaguar moves it.

As the half moon rises just after midnight, the beach is transformed.

The crocodile returns to the water's edge, as if waiting for something.

Meanwhile, another jaguar appears to patrol the beach.

The crocodile stays near the water for safety.

And now more turtles are arriving.

In the water, they're as light as a feather.

On land, carrying her 40 kilo bulk is an effort.

For reasons scientists don't fully understand, this beach is just one of a

few that all of ridley turtles use for nesting.

These same animals travel the pacific, yet return here to this one spot every year.

She finds the right place and temperature by smelling the sand.

And then she starts to dig.

By the time she's late, she's in a trance.

She doesn't even notice me or the camera.

As if on cue, there's a jaguar.

It doesn't need to listen for the turtles now.

It can see them perfectly well.

As far as I know, this is the father of five and a half titan.

This is the first time a wild jaguar has ever been filmed in moonlight.

This must be one of the most relaxed big cat hunts ever.

The kill technique is the same.

The jaguar pushes the turtle's face into the sand so it can reach the jugular.

Which it cuts.

As the jaguar laps up the turtle's lifeblood,

the crocodile moves in for a closer look.

But is wise to keep its distance.

Now the jaguar starts to move its prize away from prying eyes.

But as the cat starts for the forest, it changes its mind.

Again, the same technique.

In cats, the need to feed and the desire to kill are not necessarily linked.

Despite the first turtle being enough, a second is killed too.

It'll be a few years yet before this two and a

half metre crocodile could challenge the jaguar.

But one day it will.

If the big cat doesn't eat it first.

Jaguars were missing here for something like 50 years.

And now they're back.

To feed on turtles.

The number of turtles coming ashore is increasing.

They have no knowledge of what is happening on land.

This is the start of a small arrebada.

The Spanish word meaning arrival.

Used to describe the mass nesting behaviour of the olive ridley turtle.

That's the point.

This is a turtle defence strategy to synchronise nesting so that they saturate

predators with arriving adults as well as for emerging youngsters.

When the beach is inundated, even jaguars with the most

insatiable drive to kill are unable to make a significant impact.

And it's predators like jaguars that create this behaviour

by preying disproportionately on the single nesters.

The number of turtles is closely monitored.

And we have a good idea of how many come every year and what their main threats are.

Jaguars turn out to be way down the list.

By dawn, the arrebada is almost over.

Some 500 turtles having already nested.

And now the direction of travel.

Is mostly towards the sea.

Nancite is one of only three major olive

ridley rookeries on the entire Pacific coast.

That jaguars are back after such a long absence is great news for the cats.

But perhaps for the turtles as well.

Fossils have shown us that jaguars have fed on these

ancient reptiles for hundreds of thousands of years.

Jaguars are a natural part of this beach.

By driving out the coyotes and coates which used to dig up many thousands of

eggs each year it's actually possible that jaguars have done the turtles a favour.

There seem to be fewer black vultures on the beach than I remember from the past.

And that's because they're all hanging around

various turtle kills hidden in the forest.

As far as I can see, the return of the big cats has

changed the ecology of the whole place quite dramatically.

Jaguar scientist Eduardo Carrillo has been watching the process for 35 years.

When we started, it was very difficult to see jaguars.

You could hardly see them.

We came here, I've been here for 30 years,

35 years since I came to Nancite for example.

And I can say that in the first 15 or 20 years we've never seen a jaguar.

Never.

Not even a trace.

In this place, for example, there were many coyotes.

There were many peasants.

There were other small species.

But there are more jaguars.

It's an excellent indicator that the forest is healthier now.

The fact that we can film jaguars at all is possibly due to

the Nancite Turtle Project and mostly to the work of one man.

Wilbur Matamoros has spent most nights walking the beach for the best part of the

last six years to count and measure nesting turtles.

At first, there were very few jaguars and they kept a low profile.

But as the years passed, the cats became curious.

I always walk with a big white light and I just look at the eyes.

And I remember that when I got to about five metres

he stopped eating the turtle and came towards me.

I had to scream.

And I was very scared.

He spent so much time on the beach with the turtles that

the cats now regard him as just part of the furniture.

Without his constant presence, it's unlikely

that we would have seen a single cat.

Some of the jaguars appeared a bit surprised to see us, but by the time we

had spent a month there, others began to ignore us completely.

I can tell you that if they don't want to

show themselves, you will never see a jaguar.

And yet here, this beach is utterly unique in the whole world and having wild jaguars

just walking 10, 20, 30 metres away has been one

of the most extraordinary privileges of my life.

With the help of radio collars, Eduardo and his team have been able to

track the movements of the jaguars here to reveal that some of them alternate their

time between Nancite, where they hunt turtles at night, and mountain forests 20

miles away where they hunt white-lipped peccaries during the daylight hours.

As soon as the peccaries detect a jaguar or any threat,

they use their canines to make this strange sound.

They escape this time, but as long as the jaguar stays in touch with the herd,

there will always be a chance to catch one.

Nancite is a very unusual situation.

Looking at these pictures, it's easy to forget that places where it is even

possible to film wild jaguars are very rare.

In fact, I know of only one other where jaguars

can be filmed in the wild behaving naturally.

Brazil's Pantanal.

The world's largest wetland.

Caimans, small versions of crocodiles crowd the bank.

Giant otters patrol the waterways.

And capybaras, the world's largest rodent, bask in the morning sun.

This is where the biggest of all jaguars grow to 150 kilos, as big as a lioness.

As with Nancite 10 years ago, it was almost impossible to see a jaguar here.

But the rise of tourists has helped them become used to people.

And there's been a huge change in attitude among ranchers too.

In the space of a decade, the cat that was invisible to

humans can now be seen in the wild by anyone buying a ticket.

The vultures that scavenge jaguar kills in Costa Rica are here in numbers too.

Keeping an eye on their meal ticket.

So something must be going right for the jaguars.

Despite the fact that there are more caimans here than

any other type of crocodile anywhere else on earth.

There are thought to be 10 million living in the Pantanal.

On the surface, it doesn't seem to be typical cat country.

Most jaguars are quite nocturnal.

But here they can be seen basking in sunlight.

Or patrolling their territory.

Or hunting.

And the jaguar has plenty of options.

But this habitat doesn't suit a high speed chase.

With the approach of a big cat,

everything makes for the water.

Which is what you'd expect in broad daylight.

Caimans, with their own set of powerful jaws and sharp teeth,

are not the kind of animal that is normally preyed upon.

As potential victims, they pose a few problems.

Firstly, once in the water, the caiman will have far

superior speed and would easily out swim a jaguar.

Secondly, cats usually kill their prey with a suffocating bite to the throat.

But caimans can hold their breath for half an hour.

So that won't work.

The only thing that's in the jaguars' favour is that the

cold-blooded reptiles need to bask in sunlight during the day.

And this is the only chance the big cats have to catch one.

However, caiman have excellent vision and can

see a jaguar coming from a great distance.

A successful hunt requires planning.

The jaguar has to get very close without being seen and

so goes into the forest and moves upstream out of sight.

The jaguar emerges from the forest directly behind the caiman in its blind spot.

The cat slips into the water and swims directly towards the basking reptile

staying exactly where the caiman can't see it.

Instead of the typical big cat throat bite the jaguar uses

crushing jaw power to bite straight into the brain casing.

And the kill is almost instantaneous.

Perhaps this explains the jaguars' daylight-loving habits here as caimans

spend the night in the water where the cats can't reach them.

With their ability to swim eat-anything attitude and unparalleled jaw strength

jaguars have made the forests and swamps of Central and South America their own.

We think of these cats as typical animals of the new world.

But in fact jaguars began life in Europe and Asia over a

million years ago and then found their way to the Americas.

Long ago they disappeared from Eurasia and we now know from genetic studies that

10,000 years ago they came very close to extinction here too.

Luckily they managed to recolonize much of their former range

but in modern times jaguar distribution is shrinking again.

To see a mother and cub playing in the open like this was, until recently,

extremely rare.

But now they've begun to show themselves.

We have a real chance to learn more about jaguars

and perhaps find ways of living alongside them.