Strong swimmers with large heads, thick necks and sled-like paws, these large diving cats hunt both underwater and on the surface. Watch them in action Find Wildlife

It was said that it could not be done: the place was too dangerous; floods would wipe out the cameras; the system was very unpredictable. But the truth is, no one has ever tried Andi Cross tells Melissa Hobson.

We were heading to Porto Jofre, known for its wild jaguars, to help the Jaguar Identification Project (JIP) complete a network of 41 trap grids – one of the largest ever installed in the Pantanal of South America – to measure the jaguar population in the park using non-invasive methods.

JIP – a non-profit organization that studies how these cats respond to a rapidly changing environment – has recorded more than 478 individual leopards, building the largest cloud database in the world.

The Edges of Earth team was joined by JIP founder Abbie Martin, Brazilian biologist João Rodrigues, and Cigano Silas – a local Pantaneiro born and raised in this unforgiving environment.

Recent estimates indicate that there are more than 1,600 leopards in the area but no one has directly estimated the number of leopards in the park. Soon, thanks to this new grid, the team will finally have a number based on concrete, long-term field work.

Every day for a week, we went up and down the rivers looking for cats, waiting for the capybara’s loud bark, signaling danger to others. Out here, everything respects the jaguar.

Jaguars will take down just about anything. Think pigs, iguanas, birds, and even giant otters (new behavior in the area).

Each cat has its own hunting style. Others walk on the beaches. Others lurk in trees, diving from five to eight meters above the ground.

We saw two leopards pushing the boundaries. A jaguar named Ousado was seen diving underwater, hunting stealthily from the bottom – a technique that had never been seen before.

Then one called Medrosa came down from the trees to dive down to catch the prey. These cats unlock new levels of pre-existence and adaptation to environmental conditions in real time.

Because the leopard is a very flexible predator, it has learned to destroy the aquatic environment in a few other major ways.

Jaguar is designed for this. Big heads, thick necks, and paws like sledgehammers. They have the strongest bite force of any big cat, which is an evolutionary tool to break through turtle shells and reptile prey. And they are very powerful dives.

Helena Aimee, a JIP veterinarian told us that, in this environment dominated by rivers, leopards always hunt aquatic prey such as caiman and capybara, but people like Ousado and Medrosa take this a step further by diving underwater or in trees – learning from experience and refining their aquatic hunting techniques.

River systems are important buffer zones: they provide food during extreme events such as drought and fire and create unique hunting strategies that allow leopards such as Ousado and Medrosa to thrive.

The lives of these cats are dangerous. Some break their dogs to bring down armed prey such as caiman. Others die of territorial wars, old age or wild atrocities. Jaguars live between 12 and 15 years in the wild, but some live upwards of 17 years.

In this swampy desert, leopards are not endangered now. But that does not mean they are safe, especially as human pressures increase.
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Andi Cross is a tour leader, strategist, and SSI certified technical diver. With Edges of Earth, he works with scientists, indigenous leaders, and coastal communities around the world to document climate change and discover solutions that are already working on the conservation front.