Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas translates to the State Park where the waters meet. This state park in the heart of the Pantanal is the best place to find Jaguars along the river banks preying on Capybaras and Caimans. There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding the tourist industry here. An industry of boats taking tourists to see jaguars here sprung up virtually overnight. All of the boats seem to have an agreement amongst each other to radio in when a Jaguar is seen which causes pandemonium when 10-15 boats full of tourists are jostling for position to get a look. It kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth, figuratively but also literally since the gas fumes from all the boats lingers in the air around where the jaguars are being seen. This is not even taking into account all the floating hotels that have moved into the area to provide a home base for the tourists. I don't even want to know what they are doing with the human waste from the hotel boats, but I can guess. All that being said, the creation of this industry has led to many positive things. The setting aside of the land as a state park is one of these positives and is one of the best ways to protect the jaguars. Now what can be done on the land and on the rivers is at least somewhat regulated. Overfishing is less of a problem now. The local people have something other than fishing to live off of. So in summary, it's a mixed blessing.
Our floating hotel for the next few days was moored the previous evening by tethering us to a large tree on the river bank within the State Park boundaries or maybe just outside of it. This allowed us an easy way to access the diverse rivers and oxbows without having to motor back and forth from Porto Jofre which is what some tourists do. We set off early in the morning to begin a full day hunting jaguars and other critters. The skiff had about a dozen seats in an open floor plan with a boatman controlling the outboard engine in the back.
Capybara catching some early morning rays on their riverside perch.
In fact all of the following shots were taken from the boat.
Pied Lapwing probing the riverbanks for a breakfast.
I spotted this Bat Falcon high up as we motored past.
Tropical Kingbird
Blue-throated Piping-Guan - or if you use eBird's checklist White-throated Piping-Guan. This complex clade of birds is tricky because of cross breeding between the Red-throated and Blue-throated. The long wattle and lack of red means this one probably didn't have much of any Red-throated genes, but who knows.
Masked Gnatcatcher
Female Chestnut-vented Conebill
Silver-beaked Tanager
Ashy-headed Greenlet
White-wedged Piculet
Squirrel Cuckoo
Rufescent Tiger-Heron
Savannah Hawk
Unicolored Blackbird
Giant Otters! These things were truly giant and they are badasses. If you google Giant Otter vs Jaguar or Caiman you will find a whole rabbit hole of YouTube videos where troops of otters fight and win against both.
They were only super cute when we saw them.
Yellow-billed Tern
By 10am on the first day, we already got notice of a Jaguar camping out at the carcass of a dead cow that had floated on the river from a nearby ranch.
It took a while for the Jaguar to show itself in the high grass near the kill but it was worth the wait. What a magnificent animal! Jaguars have the strongest jaw muscles of all of the big cats. Their bite force is around 1,500 pounds per square inch, which is about double that of a tiger! This allows them to disable and kill Caimans.
We got many better looks later in the day and the next day too.
Great Kiskadee and Rusty-margined Flycatcher
Yellow-billed Tern
Pied Lapwing
Yacare Caiman
After lunch we got on another Jaguar and this one climbed into a tree above the river.
It seemed oblivious to us but I can't help wonder if having a bunch of boats staring at it disrupts its watch and wait hunting technique. No Caiman or Capybara is going to swim by when we are all clogging up the river below him.
Eventually he went back down and into the jungle.
The river banks on the main river were full of a blooming red flowered tree called the Ant Tree. There is a specific type of fire or red ant that has a symbiotic relationship with this tree and will attack if they perceive a threat to the tree. So the locals have learned to leave this type of tree alone.
Pale-vented Pigeon
Later in the afternoon we were rounding a corner on one of the rivers when we ran into several Capped Herons. The guide remarked that we were extremely lucky that they did not flush and allowed us to approach.
White-winged Swallow
Black-capped Donacobius
Black-backed Water-Tyrant
Southern Beardless-Tyrannulet
Green Iguana
Orange-backed Troupial
What an awesome time on the river! I could spend weeks exploring it and still only scratch the surface.
More pics from our second day on the river next....
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