World Wildlife Fund

© WWF / Paloma Alcazar

Deep in the heart of the Amazon roam jaguars, pumas and other creatures of the jungle. Rodrigo Donadi of WWF’s AREAS Amazonia project has been tracking them for almost two years. He’s felt the bone-rattling sound of a jaguar’s roar and seen herds of wild pigs stampeding through the lush rain forest. Join him in the Amazon as he comes face to face with the jaguar – king of the jungle.

Part 1: A Dream Come True | Part 2: River Ride | Part 3: Forest Friends | Part 4: Platforms and Peccaries | Part 5: Tigers in the Amazon? | Part 6: A Trapper's Call | Part 7: Success on the First Try! | Part 8: Face to Face with a King | Part 9: Darting Tankar | Part 10: Tracking in the Jungle | Part 11:
Ghost of the Amazon | Part 12: Afterthoughts

Duggins Wroe during capture efforts
© WWF / Rodrigo Donadi

We met the long-awaited Duggins Wroe, an easy-going and friendly man who describes his trade as “hillbilly biology.” Duggins has been trapping bears and pumas in the western U.S. for scientific and wildlife management purposes for the past 30 years. He visited us near the start of the project two years ago to try his hand at some jaguar captures, but left disappointed

Ever since then Duggins has been thinking about our problem and was coming back to us with a new idea he was certain would get the job done here. Under his guidance we set up three trap sites that day. In the middle of each site was our key to unlocking the secrets of these elusive and notoriously difficult to catch animals – the “call box.”

This piece of equipment is basically an MP3 player connected to a loudspeaker that is programmed to play recordings of animal calls throughout the night at predetermined intervals. There are many different sounds that can be used but we decided to go for three basic ones: a male jaguar call, a female jaguar in heat, and a deer fawn in distress to trigger the cats’ instincts and draw them to the scene.