Alan Lee Of the big cats in rainforests of Peru – the jaguar (Panthera onca) and the puma, the Puma is the harder one to see usually as it is displaced from areas where jaguar are found as there is a degree of competition between the two species. The jaguar, the heavier and stronger cat, can easily chase a puma from its territory. During my many hundreds of kilometres of transects and walks through the forest, I have encountered 4 jaguar, but only 2 puma. Well, that was until last week when doing a transect at TRC with Earthwatch volunteers Pam and Doug. It was 7:00am, it had been light for two hours, and we were distracting ourselves from the slow pace at which the transect is walked by trying to spot antbirds along the trail. A pair of Goeldi’s antbirds were calling tantalizingly close from a bamboo tangle near a tree-fall clearing. My eyes tiring of trying to catch a fleeting glimpse of the shadowy form, I glanced down the trail. My head jerked back in surprise as between the broken vegetation down the trail was the large head of puma staring back at me. Not wanting to take my eyes off the animal, but at the same time wanting to alert my companions to the cat’s presence, I raised my folder to my face and whispered loudly and hoarsely into it to muffle my urgent call from the cat “There’s a puma on the trail, there’s a puma on the trail!” The cat continued to stare at me, and not sure if I had been heard I glanced behind me to see Pam’s large eyes looking down the trail and Doug easing his way forward. “Will it attack?” whispered Pam. “No, just enjoy” I whispered back. Then glancing back at the cat, its body now across the trail, it lashed its tail back and forth and I realised that the extra large head was part an optical illusion from a radio collar around the cat’s neck. With a final twitch of the tail it turned around and headed off down the trail and out of sight, gone in less than 2 seconds. We celebrated our unexpected sighting. But for some reason a part of the magic that accompanies cat sightings was not part of this one, and on later reflection I realised what it was. The radio collar was a symbol of our impact on the wildlife in this remote region of the world and shouted out that our presence, good or bad, is being felt in even the most remote corners of our least explored, least disturbed corners of the planet. I know that the research that WWF are doing will probably be beneficial to creating better management plans and help our understanding of the needs of these special creatures, but never in any cat encounter that I have had in South America before have I felt the aggression that the puma was unconsciously projecting towards us with the lashing of the tail. Before, I had felt like an unexpected presence, a surprise in the daily life of the cats big and small that I had encountered. But now, this cat was associating me with what must have been confusion, helplessness and possibly pain when it was trapped, sedated and collared by fellow researchers. Of course my wife was incredibly jealous that I had notched another feline, and for some the simply awe of seeing such a rare and hard to see animal is an amazing thing. Pam and Doug said that was a walk of a lifetime. But for me, for some reason, I feel a touch of sadness remembering the proud and angry face of a lord of the jungle who know’s his reign is drawing to an end.
