A U.S. Conservationist Was Lost in the Amazon for Days. Then, a Large Wild Cat Found Him
Paul Rosolie had been lost in the Peruvian Amazon for two days and was walking in circles. He walked deeper into the jungle, in the wrong direction, fell down, got stung by bees, and collapsed in exhaustion. At one point, he set up a hammock, jumped inside, and dozed off into sleep. Rain was pattering, and terror struck him. "I was terrified I was never gonna come out of the jungle," he said. Before he could drift into a dreamy, restful slumber, he was jolted into wakefulness. He could feel the whiff of a hot breath. A jaguar was standing close to him, less than half an inch away, sniffing him from one side of his head. His heart probably started racing when he realized that it was bringing its mouth closer to his ears. The jaguar opened its mouth and growled. In the nocturnal silence, the sound felt like thunder. His eardrums vibrated.
This seemingly spine-chilling episode sounds straight from an adventure thriller, but it’s not. Ask Rosolie, who encountered this jaguar up close in an ultra-real encounter. In conversation with The Mirror, he shared that this was the moment when he realized the “power of the jungle, the command of a big cat like a jaguar.” He, sort of, learned a “respect” that stayed with him for a very long time. Rosolie, an American conservationist, author, and filmmaker, was on a solo expedition in the Amazon when he found himself lost, about five days away from the nearest village, when this episode unfolded and left him guessing the unfathomable mystery of nature.
Not that Rosolie is not aware of the dangers that lurk in the heart of the Amazon jungle. He, in fact, has been in love with it ever since he was a child. It seems like a distant memory when he left college to explore the “wildest place on Earth” as a research volunteer. After spending more than two decades exploring the meandering trails and shadowy nooks of the Amazon, Rosolie’s instincts are trained for the worst of nature.
Sand flies, wasps, and bullet ants can sneak inside his pants and carve out a painful Morse code on his flesh, but his body doesn't react to bug bites too much anymore, as he described to Joe Rogan. Amazon tribes, who don’t let outsiders in their territory, can shoot their arrows or ambush him in a jiffy, as he shared on Lex Fridman’s show. Yet, for two decades, he has been roaming the jungle, documenting its monkey calls, venom-spitting snakes, and everything in between. His organization JungleKeepers currently protects about 120,000 acres of the rainforest, while his book of the same name chronicles his encounters with the uncontacted Amazonian tribes.
Every other day, he is roaming among endangered species, protecting them from the nets of illegal traffickers, planning the restoration of threatened ecosystems, and travelling with poachers in the Amazon. But even though he has committed to guard this green jewel of our home planet, he is not immune to the dangers that the wild of nature poses for humans.
This encounter with the jaguar left him as petrified as heedful for his future expeditions. Thanks to his jungle instincts, the episode ended on a positive note. By feigning motionlessness in the darkness, he deceived the animal and gave it a safe interval to pass by. The jaguar “hardly made a sound” and simply left him alone.
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