Argentina's elusive big cats

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1:04The impenetrable forest in northern Argentina is also known as the Forest of Spikes, because most plants and trees here are covered in them. I'm standing right next to a tree that has spines like rhino horns protruding from its trunk. Amongst the spikes and spines, jaguars used to roam. But thanks to hunting and deforestation, the population was practically extinct. Until last month, a very exciting creature was spotted on the banks of the muddy river that surrounds this forest, a jaguar cub. I'm Charlotte Pritchard, and for this week's Crossing Continents, I've come here to find out who made that possible, and what the future is for this new jaguar family.

1:56My colleague Macarena Gagliardi and I are going to make our way to the dusty banks of the River Bermejo We're going to spend two days navigating this river because it's the most likely place we will spot a jaguar The river is important because jaguars are great swimmers They roam via the water trying to find food and mates and can cover around a mile and a half a day's swimming. Jaguars are the world's third largest cat, after the tiger and the lion. Their orange, white and black skin is like a leopard's, but with larger black spots. There's a strong, sweet smell in the syrupy air. My guide Melina Ibanez, shortened to Meli, tells me it's coming from what they call the hairy tree because its leaves are like small hedgehogs.

2:47They smell amazing. The flowers are yellow and kind of look a bit like honeysuckle, but they smell like quince. The day we arrived was the first day of spring, and it was already 45 degrees. Melina tells me that during the summer it gets to over 55. It's unbearable, she says. It's unbearable, because it's a very closed forest, So it's difficult to get in and to be here. But she really loves it. For her it's amazing. She wouldn't leave this place. She feels that maybe people coming from abroad may find it difficult, but not her. As my days in the impenetrable forest go on, I do indeed find it very difficult to be there.

3:36It's hot, dusty and uncomfortable. But Melina was born and raised here and is an expert on everything else that lives in the forest too. To get to school, she used to walk seven kilometres a day, which is how she learnt all about the wildlife. She said, I didn't care about anything except being very fit and, you know, riding and running and jumping. As I'm smelling the fake quince tree, the first wild animal we see runs out from behind it. Oh, that's a little armadillo coming right towards us. Oh, it's quite big. I'm not sure I want it to eat my toast. It wasn't bothered by us at all. Even the armadillo had spikes on its back.

4:20Our other guide is Evaresto Santos Ortega. He's originally from the Gaucho region near Buenos Aires, but left his horses a few years ago to also guide tourists around the wilds of the impenetrable forest.

4:37From Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, we took a two-hour flight to the provincial town of Resistencia. Then there was an eight-hour drive, eventually on dirt tracks, to take us deep into the forest. OK, life jacket on. We can all swim. It's going to be a problem with life jackets on because it's so hot.

5:00We're doing it. We're getting onto that small little boat in a very, very muddy brown river. Very low, right? It is low. Definitely the banks are exposed. You can see kind of small hills of muddy, dusty, sandy banks. Thank you very much. Melly's given me a turn because it's also very slippy. Thank you. Gracias. You OK? Yeah. Thank you.

5:27Both Melina and Everesto work for Rewilding Argentina, a non-profit foundation that is reintroducing the jaguars into this part of Argentina. The project has three aims. Grow the population of this top predator, get the local people to accept the idea of them roaming around again and establish tourism to provide jobs. It became a national park open to the public in 2018.

5:58Arrancamos, we've started the adventure. And already, what are those big blackbirds in the distance to our left? They were black vultures circling and swooping into the water. This looks like a chocolate river. It's deeply, deeply brown. Kind of reddy brown, like it's been mixed with clay and chocolate.

6:25What are we going to see hopefully here, Melly? She's crossing both her fingers on both hands.

6:39Along this river, Melina has seen tapirs, South America's largest land animal, caimans like small crocodiles, giant anteaters, wild boars and deers. She's never seen a jaguar though.

6:55And that's because she's 27 years old. Jaguars have been extinct here for at least three decades. She grew up knowing that there was no chance of seeing one in her forest. We pass black eagles, always in pairs, perched on naked branches jutting out from the water. Occasional caimans slide into the river, their sunbathing disturbed by our noise. Everester's just tying up the boat on a beautiful branch. Actually, the tree's fallen into the river so that we can stop the motor and just have a quick chat.

7:30so just tell me what you were saying about the trees in this forest so basically this spiky forest has very good wood it takes a long time to grow but it's very resistant and there is a great demand for it both for furniture and construction and also nowadays there is some international demand for this type of wood because it's really good Outside this national park is one of the most deforested areas in the world, which is why the jaguars and other animals here gradually died out. As we drove here from the provincial capital, I saw huge lorries transporting stacks of logs to a nearby river port.

8:12And then we saw factories with chimneys pumping smoke into the sky. They were extracting tannins from the wood for the food, pharmaceutical or leather industries. What was most obvious was the flatness. Field after field of crops or bare land where there used to be trees. Trees essential for the health of the planet.

8:36We've arrived.

8:42So after about three and a half hours on the water, getting stuck. Oh my gosh, I kind of lost count how many times we got stuck in the shallow water. We've arrived on the riverbank where we are camping for the night. Look, they're enormous. They're enormous cat footprints. Wait, I mean, I'm really surprised about how big they are, aren't you? Yeah, indeed. They're huge. Let me describe bigger than our hands. Almost like my feet. Melina comes over to see what we're looking at. The footprints of a tapir. So not the tracks of a big cat. Clearly we need some help from Melina, who takes us down the riverbank to see if we can find the real things.

9:25And on the riverbanks there are absolutely heaps of tracks, footprints going down to the river. Obviously animals have come out of the forest behind us and are going into the water or going down to the water's bank. So we're just walking down the crunchy, powdery mud. This one? Pecari labial. So that's the wild boar, the pecari. A big pig's trotter. This one, she's pointing with her toenails, all of us from very muddy feet. What's this one? It's a forest cat. I write so they're orange and black. This is quite an amazing way to be spending a sunset evening. The sky has gone all pink and dappled with blue clouds as well.

10:12I'm looking for Jaguarente. Yeah. What we want is the jaguars. So sometimes you can see on these beaches the jaguar footprints. mosquito spray because we're being attacked by mosquitoes. There is an invasion right now. I have never seen swarms like it. Suddenly the sun went down and as I was looking at Melly, there was just a swarm of black over her head. I knew that this forest was for the hardy, but perhaps I'm not as hardy as I thought. We had to pause the interview because we were all just being attacked by them. Though we didn't see any jaguar footprints, As it gets dark, I start to feel a little nervous about camping here.

10:52I wonder how locals must feel knowing that this foundation is trying to get more big cats to also live in this forest.

11:02For many people in the community, it's hard and difficult, and she understands why, because they are brought up with the idea that the jaguar is a bad animal, will come to your house and eat you, and eat your animals, you need to hunt it. It's how many locals are distrustful. The foundation has a special team to try and change these generation-old beliefs. They try to get locals on board with saving the jaguars by giving them jobs in tourism. Because tourists should bring more money than hunting or logging would. And the hope is that people will want to protect the animals that attract the tourists here in the first place.

11:41Melina has now studied to be a guide. Her family's lives have changed a lot since rewilding knocked on their door that day. Her grandfather used to have a ranch of algarrobo. And algarrobo are the carob tree here, which are very prized for their wood. And basically the ranch was left as kind of beach because it was totally clean. He locked all the algarrobos to be sold. Is your dad convinced? Has this project managed to convince him as well? Nowadays, her parents have a touristic business. Her mother sells artisanal goods, so they are not deforesting.

12:26Even though I'm incredibly excited to be camping in the middle of nowhere, with mosquitoes flying into my ear, I have to admit that I do feel a tiny bit jumpy at any sort of noise or any sort of glint in the bushes. I just saw a tiny little firefly. We're camping right in the middle of Jaguar territory. Buenas noches. Buenas noches. Buenas noches. Despite all my guide's reassurances, I didn't sleep a wink that night.

13:06I've swapped my usual alarm clock for that In the morning on my way into the bushes I spot larger cat footprints just outside my tent Evaresto is casual when I call him over Oh, they're from a puma Perhaps it wasn't a firefly

13:26We're now on our way to rewilding Scientific Station to see how and where they actually reintroduce the jaguars Evaresto radios his colleagues to let them know we're setting off and I ask if he can find out if they know where the wild jaguars are today just to up our chances of seeing them on this next boat journey

13:48He cannot, because if that information goes through the walkie-talkie, the radio, you know, it's open, then it's public information, and other people, like hunters or people who do not want the jaguar here, may get the tip, and that is exposing the animal to dangers.

14:12Despite rewilding's best efforts, hunting is still a problem here. A few days ago, Evaresto saw a boat of men who were pretending to be fishermen, that had huge guns. An hour or so into our journey, we see another boat, and he views them suspiciously.

14:32Do you see lots of people like this, or lots of hunters? He does see lots of fishermen. Okay, so actually Everesto has seen hunters as well before. In the night they go down the river using really, really strong lights to try and catch the eyes of the animals that are on the beaches, on the river banks, in order to hunt them. Okay, so it was very common that children here would hunt lizards because then they could sell their skins and actually they used to buy things that they needed for school, like exercise books or pencils, and that's actually how the children were making money around here.

15:14So he's saying that this is the poorest region in Argentina. So actually the hunters come here to try and make a living. Sometimes they do sell the skins, but actually it's mainly just to eat and survive. There's very little work here. That's why they find solutions from what they have, and what they have is the forest. Four hours later, we arrive at our next stop Rewilding Argentina's scientific station Which is a tent where the temperature must have been over 50 degrees There I meet the self-named Jaguar Girls They're the group of young women who are reintroducing this forest's top predator Hola, como estas?

15:56Soy Charlotte Debra Abregu starts by showing me on her laptop How they monitor the wild jaguars they have here They all have collars whose radars can be picked up about three times a day and then pinpointed on a map.

16:13Wow, so he was very close. So that's very close. So she's just pointing and it's really close. It's about 30 metres away. Wow. Yes. We might have some luck. We might see. The women have also set up hidden cameras across the forest, which are motion activated. so whenever an animal walks past, they start recording. On the side of the tent opposite us, there's a large television divided into nine sections. This is where they watch what their hidden cameras have sent back to them. Now I feel like I'm really in a wildlife documentary. I can imagine, so you have a lot of fun watching these cameras.

16:52Agostina Donini is the biologist leading the reintroduction of the jaguars. She used to be a vet looking after pets in central Argentina, but arrived here nearly two years ago.

17:06This project all started in 2019 when a lone male jaguar was spotted swimming down the Bermejo River. Locals named him Caramta, which means the one who cannot be destroyed in the indigenous language. He was the first jaguar spotted here for 35 years. Agustina explains that he was looking for a mate and rewilding Argentina saw an opportunity. In another project further south, they'd rescued a female jaguar called Tania from a zoo. They transported her here and made her a hectare large enclosure with its own private oxbow lake.

17:47They put a kind of trap, but a nice one, to attract him and put him inside the same cage of Tania. She was receptive, she was on heat. They made the act. Karim Tal was thrilled to find Tanya and she gave birth to twins three months later, a girl and a boy. Así que son muy buenas noticias. That's a huge, huge excitement. Both the scientists' faces were full of smiles. They couldn't believe this first step had worked. Because she spent so long in a zoo, Tanya can never be released. But the jaguar girls helped her raise her babies without human contact so that one day they would be ready to live fully in the wild.

18:33They need to confuse them and feed them in a way they wouldn't associate the human smell or their presence with a potential animal to eat and rely on the humans to actually bring them food. And also they need to learn how to hunt and be the predators they are. So they need to put these other life animals, birds, etc. in a way they do not associate it with the humans. Meanwhile, two other wild males arrived swimming down the river. Tammy Book in 2022 and then Te Book in 2024. The scientists think they swam from the Bolivian cloud forest several hundred miles away, attracted by the females that were now in the impenetrable forest.

19:21She explained that it's a mix of the smell and the roaring, the noise they do. But obviously they need to come a long way through the river and when they are near these areas they will start smelling or listening and approaching them. When the women are in heat their rules change to a higher pitched panting sound and it's believed that this is how males know where they are.

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20:57And this is the female roaring when she's in heat.

21:11so it's a distinctive noise it's different from the male roaring isn't it so basically it's a very specific noise and roar and it has happened to her that being inside those cages, special cages, and having a female doing that noise, and then started listening a male replying, you know, from kilometres away. And also she said that a human can listen to that noise around four kilometres away, so imagine probably the animal much more. One of the twins born was a girl called Nala. Once they'd assessed her hunting skills and decided she was ready to be freed, they made sure she could leave the enclosure.