Original subtitles

Did you hear that?

Go, go, go, go.

[ whispers ] we might have a jaguar.

My name is coyote peterson, and I've traveled the world

Seeking out the most fascinating animals on our planet.

Look at that!

No matter the location,

My mission has always been the same --

To get up close and uncover the secrets of the creatures

That we often misunderstand or even worse, fear.

Every animal has a story and I brave the wild to tell it.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

The most dangerous predators are the ones we rarely see,

And for the prey animals they stalk,

A mere glimpse is the only sight seen

Before a swift and violent end.

On this expedition,

I will become the predator

By using stealth and technology in an attempt to track

And find the western world's largest cat -- the jaguar.

♪

We've all seen beautiful images of these majestic animals,

But what you haven't seen is the struggle, persistence,

And danger one must face in order to reach

That ultimate moment of encounter.

This is what it takes.

[ birds calling ]

♪

♪

We depart early onto the silence river,

A crucial source of water that is considered

The vital artery of life for this entire ecosystem.

For the team and I,

This river will also become our natural highway,

Allowing us to cover significant distance with ease

As we wind through the dense landscapes.

Before visiting south america,

I had no particular interest in jaguars.

I had a general appreciation for these mysterious felines,

And I understood the basics,

But it wasn't until I found myself

Venturing into the brazilian pantanal

That the very real possibility of seeing one of these cats

Took hold of my very being.

♪

So we've chosen to explore

The pantanal during the dry season,

And the reason for that is,

All the water is concentrated in one area,

Which means the animals are gravitating towards the water,

And, of course, everything out here is designed

For a semiaquatic lifestyle, even jaguars.

In the cat world, they're one of the most tolerant of the water,

And they are excellent swimmers.

It's funny because most people think of cats

As being something that don't want to go in the water,

And this is exactly the opposite.

They're incredibly capable when it comes to being semiaquatic,

I mean, even having webbing in between their toes

To be able to move through the water quickly

And with stealth, just that face being above the surface.

I can just picture one moving through this environment,

Hunting within all the water water hyacinth

And then seeing one of these caiman.

I mean, if you're a jaguar, sneaking up is quite feasible.

♪

Oh, capybara.

-Nice. -Wow. Look at that.

The planet's largest rodent right there, a capybara,

Just moving across the line of the water there.

Look how fast they can swim.

That right there is the number one prey target for a jaguar.

A capybara is much easier to take down than a caiman.

The fact that this capybara is completely calm

Tells me there are not likely any big cats in the area.

This certainly just allows us the opportunity to take a moment

To admire how cool this rodent truly is.

♪

Pretty cool.

First large animal sighting of the day.

♪

I'm constantly scouting the edges of the river

To find places that we could potentially get off of the boat,

Get onto dry land, and explore around to see

If there's any animals up on the embankments

Or any indicator signs of their being jaguar in the environment.

♪

♪

Jaguar! Jaguar!

Just making a little bit of noise

Will alert anything that's real close in the area.

We don't want to just startle something.

We want something to know that we're here.

We don't want to venture in too, too far,

But definitely watch your feet for snakes.

♪

Look at that.

That's, like, a low, dried-up area back there.

What's this here?

This looks cat.

Look at this. This is a game trail.

The good thing about discovering a game trail is that

If you can find a spot

That animals are consistently moving through,

You can set up trail cameras,

And that's gonna be one of our primary tactics

For actually spotting jaguars.

Seeing them with the human eye is virtually impossible.

You have to be in the right place at the right time

To actually see one of these cats,

But by setting up camera traps,

That will give us a chance to possibly catch some images,

And then if we know where the jaguars

Are actually hanging out, we can stake out the environment

And hopefully have our encounter.

All right, let's head this way and follow the game trail.

♪

Let's try to get towards this green area.

♪

Oh, look at this.

That is a caiman carcass right there.

Wow. What a find.

Look at that, skull perfectly in tact.

I'll tell you, the only thing that would've killed

An animal like this and dragged it up onshore

Would've been a jaguar,

Which means this is gonna be the perfect place

To set up some camera traps,

But look at that skull.

Look at these teeth coming up through the snout.

Oh, the teeth are loose.

I want to handle it really gently.

Now, when you think about the caiman

As being an apex predator in this environment, it's true.

This is one of the most dominant creatures

You'll find in the pantanal,

But the jaguar is actually just a step above,

And the way that jaguar catch caiman is,

They sneak up on the embankment, leap off,

And they grab onto the caiman's neck

And then pick the animal up out of the water

And carry it onto land.

All right, I'm gonna just place this right back

In the environment where it was.

It's gonna continue decomposing and disappearing into nature.

We are definitely on the right track.

♪

♪

You know what I can actually see on this log?

Look how matted down all of this moss is.

At this spot right here,

I would guess that this is a game trail

Where something actually comes down to the water.

All right, let's set up on that tree first.

♪

That camera trap pointed back in this direction

With all of the open forest

Will hopefully catch us some jaguar shots.

All right, this one is good to go.

Perfect.

♪

As darkness falls,

The pantanal comes to life with a world of creatures,

Most of which never have

And never will encounter a single human.

Camera traps are the perfect noninvasive device to witness

These animals behaving naturally in the environment,

But it requires an unbelievable amount of luck

To capture these one-in-a-million moments.

At first light, we once again load into the boat

And deploy upriver into the wilds of the pantanal.

Our first order of business is to check the trail cameras

And determine if they have been triggered.

♪

Ooh, we've got 15 shots. Hold on.

Okay, back down in the boat.

Okay, we'll check the camera.

Okay, here we go.

Hit play, and shot one.

Mario, you were holding the camera.

Shot two,

Also you holding the camera.

What was that?

Did you see that?

What was that? Did you see that?

We got an ocelot, ocelot on camera.

Wow.

Not a jaguar, but seeing another one of the predatory cats

That's out here hunting on the pantanal is pretty cool.

Your odds of seeing an ocelot in the wild are slim to none,

But several years ago,

While exploring in the rain forest of costa rica,

I had one of the most incredible encounters.

Whoa. That's a wild ocelot.

It's just right here at my feet.

Look at that. How cool is that?

They go right for the neck or the head, in this case.

Ah, geez.

I just got bit in the eye, and then they have their dinner.

Ouch. Ooh, ooh. She's licking my ear.

That feels weird.

It's highly unlikely that an ocelot

Will be sharing territory with a jaguar

Because jaguars have been known to kill

And eat their smaller cousins.

This means the large tracks we saw yesterday

Most likely belong to a jaguar that was passing through,

So we're moving deeper into the pantanal.

Hey, bring this thing really, really slow.

I want to scan for tracks.

Several hours have gone by,

And while we continue to see viable prey items

Like caiman and capybara,

The idea of witnessing a cat in the shadowy underbrush

Continues to be a fantasy.

Look at this right here.

That is a jaguar track.

All right, mario, gently step up onto here.

♪

Clearly, this is an area that jaguar use.

It's definitely a game trail.

♪

So here, come up to here.

♪

Very clear path here, as well.

Oh, look at this.

Those are cat-scratch marks.

Those are claws that have raked across the trunk of this tree.

I would say setting camera trap right here

Where they funnel through is the best spot

That we could've possibly found.

All right, mario, give me that trail camera.

Okay.

Keep an eye, please, behind me just in case.

We are practically in a jaguar lair right now.

♪

I can smell cat in this area.

With the cameras in place and the day coming to a close,

We head toward home and let nature take its course.

♪

♪

Our third day begins the same as those previous --

Load in the boat, scout the river,

Tough out the heat of mid afternoon

And finally return to the camera traps just before sunset.

The thing that's different is today

We are checking cameras that have spent

The night in a jaguar's den.

This is the time of day for jaguar to be most active.

Just before sunset is when they're gonna be hunting.

♪

Okay, this is the spot with the camera trap

Right on the jaguar superhighway.

We do want to make noise just in case the cats are here.

We don't want to startle them.

[ imitates cat ]

Jaguars!

Okay, let's move up quick and check the trap.

♪

Trap is right here.

It looks like it's moved.

Be my eyes and my ears just in case something's watching us.

Okay, there's 11 images. I'm gonna take this.

Let's take it off the tree.

Something's definitely triggered it.

[ rustling ]

Did you hear that?

♪

♪

Did you hear that?

Okay, we got to move quick.

♪

Okay, go, go, go, go, go.

Give me your camera. You good?

♪

Holy cow, look at this.

The camera was played with.

Look at all the fur that is on the trap.

There are 11 images.

It's all scuffed up.

We put it right next to the tree where the cats were scratching.

This is incredible.

Okay, we got to check the shots.

Please tell me we caught some jaguar images.

Got a full clip here.

Something triggered it.

There's a jaguar right there. Look at that.

It's playing with the trap. Its paw is up on the trap.

This is amazing.

Confirmation -- that is a jaguar.

This is amazing, the first 30 seconds.

Okay, more activity at night, for sure.

It came back, and it's playing again.

You know what I think it's doing?

Scratching up against -- it's licking the camera.

It's licking the camera.

That is incredible. I can't believe it.

Oh, look, it's rubbing its head just like a cat does up

Against something, marking it for scent.

It's hard to tell what we're looking at.

It's just playing with the camera trap.

Wow.

Let's set this again right there from a different angle

And see if we get that cat to play with it again.

♪

♪

♪

Mario, you see anything?

Okay, we got to be pretty quick about this.

Okay, I'm going for it.

♪

Mario: Coyote, we got to get back to the boat.

-Did you hear something? -They heard something.

Get back to the boat. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Get back to the boat.

Go, go, go, go, go.

♪

♪

♪

♪

Okay, so we're gonna move up a little bit further here

Just to see if we can catch a glimpse of them.

I believe there's a mother and a cub.

♪

There she is. There she is. There she is right there.

Coast.

Wow. She is looking right at us.

Amazing.

Full-grown jaguar right in front of us,

The apex predator of this environment.

♪

She just disappeared back up into the shadows.

My heart is racing right now.

♪

She went back up under there.

♪

We're gonna motor upriver

Just a little ways to see if we see her.

She might have disappeared.

♪

I see her.

She's right back there.

♪

The cub is looking right at us.

Even at this age,

It's completely in tune with its environment.

♪

Cannot believe it. Cannot believe it.

We saw the jaguars. That was incredible.

I believe it was a mother.

She swam across, looked straight at us.

That is a once-in-a-lifetime encounter right there.

I can't believe --

My heart is racing right now, like, a million miles a second.

Mario: I'm kind of, like, speechless.

I'm just so glad I was able to press record,

Keep everything in focus,

And we got a jaguar on camera, two jaguars.

Two jaguars, and that moment between mother

And the future of the species in this area

That's protected from civilization.

These cats are thriving within this ecosystem.

Wow.

I'm coyote peterson. Be brave.

Stay wild.

We'll see you on the next adventure.

Man, yeah!

That's as good as it gets right there.

We drift home in silence,

Each of us speechless and lost in the replaying memory that is

And always will be our first encounter with the jaguar.

Upon reviewing the trail-camera footage in more detail,

We're able to confirm the presence

Of not one but two jaguar cubs,

And what they represent is the future of this family line.

Our cameras captured some incredibly unique moments,

But it's the clear image of this cub's facial rosette pattern

That is most valuable.

This particular jaguar has never been filmed before,

And its pattern will help research teams

And conservationists identify this cat

If it is seen or filmed again.

The chances of seeing a jaguar in the wild are incredibly rare,

And never in my wildest dreams

Did I ever imagine that I would look straight into one's eyes.

I'll never forget this stalker of the shadows,

And one day, I will return to the pantanal

With the hope that maybe,

Just maybe, I will once again find myself

In the presence of these majestic cats.