Roberto Carlos Conceição Arruda recalls the moment in 2002 when an ordinary morning routine took a harrowing turn. It was around 8 a.m., in the remote mountainous region of Serra do Amolar in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state, and Arruda, better known as Beto, then 29 years old, had left his house to fetch water from a spring. Upon returning, he came across a jaguar, which he describes as ready to attack. So he fled for cover, dashing behind a tree. But the jaguar didn’t relent, and although the tree blocked the brunt of its attack, Beto suffered several scratches. He only escaped thanks to the courage and sacrifice of his dog, Elói, a mongrel who charged at the jaguar. The big cat captured the dog and dragged it down to the riverbank, leaving Beto behind.

Coexistence between humans and jaguars in the Pantanal wetland, where Serra do Alomar is located, dates back at least 3,000 years, when Indigenous populations began to occupy the territory. The area where Beto lives and works today as a boat pilot and tour guide is home to a majestic rock formation on Brazil’s border with Bolivia, between the municipalities of Corumbá in Mato Grosso do Sul and Cáceres in neighboring Mato Grosso state. The area is part of the Serra do Amolar Protection and Conservation Network, an ecologically important site and sanctuary for large vertebrates such as jaguars (Panthera onca). The big cat has maintained a persistent presence here, making the area a strategic refuge for its survival and for the preservation of the Pantanal biome.

“I don’t feel any resentment toward the animal for that accident,” Beto says. “I work with community-based tourism, and we spot jaguars. I advocate for their preservation.”

He says that since 2022, the Pantanal jaguars — which grow to the largest size here than anywhere else in the Americas — have been spotted more frequently by riverside residents — not just in the wild, but also sometimes right in front of their homes.

“We can’t have chickens, dogs and other domestic animals anymore, because the jaguars will eat them, since there’s nothing for them to hunt,” Beto says. “Caimans and capybaras are scarce in this area, and we can often see jaguar footprints near the houses; many are living around Serra do Amolar, and we need to keep our distance from them.”

A similar attack in the Touro Morto area of the state’s Aquidauana municipality has captured the public attention more recently. In April 2025, ranch caretaker Jorge Ávila was attacked and killed by a jaguar on the banks of the Miranda River. Given the commotion caused by these events, researchers have emphasized that jaguar attacks on humans are rare, since the cats don’t consider bipeds as prey. However, they say such incidents may happen if the animals feel threatened, if food or animal carcasses are left lying around, whether intentionally or not, or if female jaguars sense that humans are getting too close to their cubs.

With Ávila’s death still fresh in the mind of many Pantanal residents, the recent appearance of jaguars in Barra do São Lourenço, near Beto’s community, led local artisan and Pantanal Network coordinator Leonida Aires to share videos on social media of the tense moments experienced by some of the 21 families in the area.

“I believe there was more than one jaguar, with cubs,” says Aires, better known in the community as Dona (“Madam”) Eliane. “They were roaming around this area all night, looking for food. I managed to drive one away by shouting from inside the house, so that it wouldn’t invade my chicken coop during the afternoon.”

In the images, jaguar tracks appear in different parts of the community, even at the top of the stairs to the home of Dona Eliane’s sister-in-law.

This isn’t the first time she and other Pantanal residents have flagged the issue of human-jaguar conflict. According to Dona Eliane, the increase in fires and extreme droughts that have ravaged the Pantanal since 2020 has driven a rise in jaguars encroaching into human-occupied areas in Serra do Amolar. She says she’s counted more than 60 dogs killed in Barra do São Lourenço and Aterro do Binega, an extension of the community. She and her husband alone have lost 21 dogs to jaguars; on one occasion, she witnessed the lightning attack from behind her window, unable to intervene. She says her dogs always bark when they notice any strange sign, warning residents, and today she prefers to keep them indoors.

“It’s common to see jaguars passing by; we live in the same Pantanal as these animals,” Dona Eliane says. “But now, either they’re spending more time near people’s homes or there seems to be more of them.”

She adds she hasn’t slept much in recent days due to the “terror” over the animals’ visits, especially in the early hours of the morning. “We hear them moving around in the backyard and we are afraid to leave the house at dusk to chat around the fire, a tradition of ours that we can’t keep anymore.”

There have never been any cases of attacks on humans in Barra do São Lourenço and Aterro do Binega. Even Dona Eliane can’t recall a confirmed case. Figures published by the Reprocon Institute, a conservation research NGO, indicate there were 28 jaguar attacks on people across Brazil between 2010 and 2023; five of these were provoked, 17 were unprovoked, and six had no determined cause.

In 2022, the Barra do São Lourenço community launched an online fundraiser to buy protective fences for local homes and the only school in the area, in order to keep children safe. But they couldn’t raise enough to cover the cost of the materials.

“We are outraged because it seems that our lives are not as important as that of the jaguars,” Dona Eliane says. “Of course jaguars and all animals need to be protected, but there is an imbalance here: they only give visibility to jaguars, forgetting that people and other beings live in this area and deserve protection and respect.”

At 58, she says, she realizes that things have changed significantly since her childhood, when she says there was more harmony between the cycles of nature and human presence.

“Today, everything seems disorganized,” she says. “The Pantanal ecosystem needs to be fully supported; we are interconnected, and if one part ceases to exist, it affects everyone’s way of life. We can’t exclude anything or anyone, everybody has the right to a decent existence.”

Like Dona Eliane, local fisherwoman Leonora Aires de Souza says she lost eight dogs to jaguars this year alone. She, too, witnessed one of the attacks, describing the jaguar involved as looking skinny. Souza says that jaguars in the past were warier of humans and did not roam as widely or as frequently into human-occupied areas as they do today.

“They do need to be preserved,” she says, “but far from us and not as close as it’s becoming common. We are afraid because they are wild and dangerous animals.”

Souza and her brother, Wanderley, work together as baiters in the Pantanal rivers. They work from night until dawn, their bodies submerged in the water as they search for crabs, knifefish, snails and other aquatic species to sell as bait to tourists who come to fish. These hours also happen to be when the jaguars, which are excellent swimmers, are on the prowl. Souza says they fear the possibility of coming face to face with a jaguar, but can’ afford to lose any income. So they take the risk of spending up to 10 hours in the water in the dark, every day.

Collaboration between science and traditional knowledge

For Diego Viana, a veterinarian and doctoral student in ecology and conservation at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), the challenge of conserving jaguars in the Pantanal isn’t just about protecting the species; above all, it’s about making sure the people who share the territory with them feel safe, heard and looked after.

“Only then will it be possible to prevent both attacks and retaliation, promoting coexistence based on justice, knowledge and shared responsibility,” he says.

Viana also stresses the importance of valuing empirical knowledge and local experiences combined with scientific monitoring to promote coexistence between human populations and wildlife, especially in places where encounters are frequent and potentially explosive. Any work to this end by NGOs and researchers must be permanent initiatives rather than stopgap responses to cases, he says.

Viana adds that the northern Pantanal stands out among the areas with the highest concentration of jaguars. The Taiamã Ecological Station, in Cáceres municipality, has the highest population density of jaguars anywhere in the world, at an estimated 12.4 individuals per 100 square kilometers, or 32 jaguars per 100 square miles. In the southern Pantanal, home to Serra do Amolar, Abobral, Nhecolândia and remote areas such as Paiaguás, also have high jaguar densities, functioning as natural refuges and movement corridors for the big cats.

“After the huge fires [in recent years] in the Pantanal, jaguars expanded their range in search of food, due to the scarcity of natural prey such as peccaries and deer, which decreased after the 2020 fires,” Viana says. “This change in behavior may have led jaguars to occupy border zones and areas close to human communities, where they find more vulnerable domestic animals.”

Viana says several riverside communities have already attributed the growing jaguar presence in their midst to what they see as a decrease in the populations of the animal’s natural prey. Although this decrease hasn’t yet been scientifically confirmed, Viana says the perception on the ground reflects jaguars’ ecological adaptation to resource scarcity, without necessarily indicating population growth.

In 2020, some 746 jaguars — approximately 45% of the estimated population living in the Pantanal — were directly impacted by the fires in the wetland, according to WWF-Brazil. The damage included displacement, injuries, deaths, and the loss of a large part of their habitat.

“Retaliatory hunting, driven by attacks on domestic animals, continues to be an obstacle, adversely affecting the populations and image of jaguars,” Viana says.

In response to the threats, conservationists and communities have implemented environmental education initiatives, monitoring by cameras and GPS collars, and more sustainable farming practices.

“With support from organizations such as WWF-Brazil, these actions seek to promote coexistence between people and jaguars, reconciling biodiversity conservation and human well-being through collaborative efforts between science and traditional knowledge,” Viana says.

His recommendations for reducing the risk of jaguar attacks include preventive measures such as not letting children walk alone near forests early in the morning or at dusk. He also says people should travel in groups and make noises, such as talking, to keep jaguars away. In addition, electric fences, wire fencing and good lighting around homes are effective deterrents, as is keeping domestic animals in closed shelters at night. The use of light repellents and proper disposal of garbage and carcasses are also essential, since jaguars may be drawn by this organic waste.

“Jaguars have great economic importance in observation tourism, generating employment and income through accommodation and guide services,” Viana says. “However, the benefits of this activity must be shared with traditional communities, which often lose domestic animals and face safety risks.”

Gediendson Ribeiro de Araújo, a veterinarian and researcher at the Reprocon Institute, took part in the capture of the jaguar blamed for the killing of Ávila. Today, the animal remains under observation at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (CRAS) in Campo Grande municipality. Araújo says the unfortunate incident holds an important lesson: although humans are not a typical jaguar prey, it’s essential that we maintain a respectful relationship with these animals, in which we are seen as predators.

“Baiting [using food to attract wild animals] is a serious problem in the area, increasing the risk of accidents like this. I’m not saying Ávila was baiting, but the simple fact that other people were doing this for the sake of tourism in the area made the animal lose its fear of humans, resulting in the tragedy,” Araújo says.

In the Pantanal, the jaguar population, classified as vulnerable by Brazil’s environment ministry, is estimated at around 4,000 individuals.

Lack of support

Dona Eliane, the Pantanal activist, says local communities feel there’s no long-term technical support or concrete solutions from either the government or organizations working in the Pantanal biome to address the growing incursions by the big cats. She cites the installation of cameras in the community a few years ago by one such organization, the Homem Pantaneiro Institute (IHP), but says there hasn’t been any feedback since.

When contacted, the IHP press office responded that, in 2022, following reports from residents of Barra do São Lourenço regarding the arrival of jaguars during the flood season, it worked with another NGO and some federal government agencies to reduce conflict, including by installing light repellents and camera traps. They also provided veterinary care for the community’s dogs and, in 2024, held discussion sessions and environmental education activities with group of students, teachers and women.

The press office also said IHP participates in an interinstitutional group that develops protocols to improve coexistence with jaguars, with meetings held in the last week of April to guide teams in remote areas of Serra do Amolar and another one scheduled for the end of May. It also highlighted the contribution of the institute’s researchers to a global scientific study that proposes pathways for coexistence between humans and jaguars.

Safety for people, protection for jaguars

“To mitigate the risk of retaliation and ensure that no new incidents involving jaguars occur, a quick and sensitive response from the government and conservation institutions is essential,” says Viana, the vet and researcher. He suggests stronger monitoring, accompanied by a presence on the ground and coordination with local leaders, to increase mutual trust and ensure different initiatives aren’t working in isolation.

Rogério Cunha de Paula is the head of the carnivore conservation at ICMBio, the environment ministry’s conservation arm. He says the agency doesn’t have specific measures targeted at the Pantanal, but instead collaborates with other organizations and research institutions present in the biome. (ICMBio was among IHP’s partners in the camera-installation initiative.)

“This [type of] collaboration has always existed and will continue to exist; the criteria for good interaction must be respected,” Paula says. “Trying to attract a jaguar closer, wanting it to be a ‘pet,’ is disrespectful toward a wild being.”

Paula says it’s not a matter of poor environmental education; the people of the Pantanal, he points out, know how to live in their territory. Instead, he says, it’s about creating effective legislation to punish activities such as illegal baiting and hunting.

“We don’t need to tell people who live in the Pantanal about the dangers of living with jaguars or the precautions to be taken in rivers with piranhas; they already know that,” he says. “We must warn those who use the Pantanal inappropriately. ICMBio is not the only one doing this; on the contrary, it’s being done in collaboration with several institutions and the state government.”

Asked about the need to conserve the species while ensuring safe coexistence between jaguars and the people of the Pantanal, the government of Mato Grosso do Sul said Ávila’s killing was “an atypical attack. There are no recent records.” Regarding public policies being implemented in the state to educate the public about wild animals, it said the state environmental police carries out a series of actions, campaigns and even expeditions to raise awareness among riverside dwellers, Pantanal residents and tourists about coexistence and about practices that are considered illegal.

The state government’s press office said a major concern to the authorities is preventing the illegal act of animal baiting, which is considered mistreatment under the state’s Wildlife Protection Law. Specifically regarding actions aimed at increasing safety and quality of life for Pantanal residents, it said there are no records indicating an increase in human-jaguar interactions.

 
Banner image of a jaguar in the Piquiri River in the Pantanal, Mato Grosso do Sul state. Image by Charles J. Sharp via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

This story was first published here on May 20, 2025.