A fascinating story of the movement to protect the jaguar, and the man who devoted his life to saving the species.
Once indigenous to North America, the jaguar is the largest cat in the Western Hemisphere. A resilient and efficient predator, it is one of the wildest creatures left on the planet. However, one million years after it appeared in the New World, the species is struggling to survive.
Heart of the Jaguar tells the story of the extraordinary undertaking to save the jaguar, which began in the jungles of Belize in the 1980s, and more than a decade later became the Jaguar Corridor Initiative. James Campbell tracks the legacy of Alan Rabinowitz – "the Indiana Jones of wildlife ecology" – a formidable man who fought for the corridor that now extends 5,000 latitudinal miles. From the Bering Land Bridge to pre-Columbian jungle temples adorned with jaguar sculptures to the internet, ferias, and jaguar preserves, Heart of the Jaguar takes readers across two continents in search of the jaguar's past and present – and its future.
James Campbell is the author of The Final Frontiersman, Braving It, and The Ghost Mountain Boys. He has written for Outside magazine, National Geographic Adventure, Men's Journal, and many other publications. He lives in Wisconsin.
"Both inspiring and gripping, James Campbell's Heart of the Jaguar artfully weaves together the life of famed jaguar researcher Alan Rabinowitz, a passionate, complex man, with the story of the jaguar itself – mysterious, beautiful, majestic, and, of course, threatened. To hike into jaguar habitat in various countries and on different continents with Campbell is to experience not just adventure, sorrow, and hope, but something so many of us crave and miss these days: the thrill of raw wildness."
– David Gessner, author of All the Wild That Remains and Return of the Osprey
"In a journalistic tour de force, James Campbell goes on the trail of the jaguar and introduces us to the remarkable animal biologists trying to save these big cats from extinction. Through Campbell's eye and spellbinding prose we experience the elusive big cat's stunning habitat, its beauty, might, and intelligence, and its mesmerizing aura. And most crucially, Campbell convinces that the difficult task of saving the jaguar is a must. Heart of the Jaguar is a worthy adventure not to be missed."
– Dean King, author of Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship That Saved Yosemite and Sufferings in Africa
"The phrase charismatic megafauna gets tossed around too often, but when it comes to the jaguar – the greatest and most mesmerizing cat in all the Americas – the term is supremely justified. James Campbell has gamely ventured far and wide, enduring adversities matched only by his deep passion for his subject. Readers will love this wild story of a talismanic species that, despite an ever-encroaching modern world, has always found the audacity to survive."
– Hampton Sides, New York Times best-selling author of The Wide Wide Sea
"An important and engaging chronicle of a magnificent, charismatic species, Heart of the Jaguar gives us a glimpse into the rarified world of big cat conservation and its colorful champions who, possessed by the spirit of the wild, venture right up to the line of both sanity and death in their efforts to protect a creature of almost mythical power."
– Tucker Malarkey, author of Stronghold: One Man's Quest to Save the World's Wild Salmon
"In this deeply researched, courageously reported book, James Campbell journeys from tropical rainforests to southwestern deserts in the footsteps of a legendary cat. Heart of the Jaguar is an enthralling homage to one of the Western Hemisphere's most storied, elusive carnivores – and the fearless people committed to preserving wildness on an ever-shrinking planet."
– Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings and Eager