An Unfamiliar Face On Our Jaguar Camera Trap!

Diego walks by our camera trap with his mouth open!

Camera trapping around the Tortuguero Jalova base has continued to be successful. On the 8^thof February at 9 AM one of the camera traps located at Mile 15 captured an image of an unidentified Jaguar. For an image to be picked up during the day is unusual as the majority of previous images have been caught late at night or in the early hours of the morning. The Jaguar is of fairly large size and has been confirmed as a male because the angle of the photo allowed a clear view of the male area!! This Jaguar is the tenth which has been discovered from our camera trapping project. The others include: Pepito, Ricardo, Molly, Lyra, Alex, Luca, Mario, Bia and Dave.

Diego walks by our camera again 2 days later

The naming of a newly discovered jaguar always causes great excitement in camp, and with the whiteboard open to suggestions, there were more than a few interesting ideas. Some of the names that sadly did not make the cut included: Floppy, Johnboy, Clifford, King Richard, Felix, and El Rock…..! After much debate among voters, and deciding that it would be good to have a ‘Spanish influence’ the names were narrowed down to Alejandro, Alvaro and Diego, with Diego coming out on top!

We hope that with some luck, we will be able to capture Diego on camera again soon! More recently there have been sightings of tracks close to the first turtle nest of the year. Jaguar guru Benji Barca expects that the jaguars are sensing the turtle’s movement, so more activity is predicted as the turtle season picks up.

-Jessica Plumb and Steven Doherty, GVI Volunteers

An Unfamiliar Face On Our Jaguar Camera Trap!