Nigel Marven travels to Brazil in pursuit of the
amazing jaguar in this action-packed six-part

series. Jaguar Adventure follows Nigel to the
Pantanal, the world’s biggest wetland and home
to the planet’s largest population of jaguars – the
least known of the big cats. In this episode, Nigel
travels down the Cuiabá River as he continues to
search for the elusive jaguar. Along the way, he
gatecrashes a caiman dinner party, swims with
giant otters and encounters bulldog bats.
Nigel Marven’s latest quest has brought him to the
swampland of the Pantanal in Brazil. Standing
between the Amazon rainforest and the
grasslands of the savannah, the Pantanal is home
to a stunning diversity of wildlife, including
armadillos, giant otters, iguanas and anteaters.
In just four weeks, Nigel hopes to get to know
the vast array of wildlife on offer and locate one
beautiful but hard-to-find mammal. Comparatively
little is known about this member of the big cat
family, because jaguars are notoriously difficult to
film. With their brilliantly effective camouflage,
jaguars blend perfectly into the foliage. Moreover,
as Nigel discovers later in the series, they have
become a sworn enemy of the ranchers to the
south. Can Nigel realise his childhood dream of
meeting jaguars in the wild?
After last week’s instalment, in which he “binged
out on an orgy of wildlife encounters”, Nigel is
hoping to maximise his chances of spotting a
jaguar by heading up the Cuiabá River – 350
murky miles of water stretching across the
northern part of the Pantanal.
The nights see this massive, seasonally flooded
swamp seething with life. During the dry season,
the fish are concentrated into small pools, making
it much easier for the numerous caiman to hunt.
“The Pantanal really does live up to its reputation
of being the caiman capital of the world,” says
Nigel, using a torch to illuminate the hundreds of
orange eyes staring back at him from the
darkness. A popular food source for the caiman is
the piranha, while larger caiman have been known
to prey on capybara and peccaries.
Moving along, Nigel muses on how each bend
of the Cuiabá seems to offer fresh delights. One of
these is a family of giant otters, which Nigel spots
feeding near the bank. It has long been a dream of
Nigel’s to swim with these huge, six-foot-long
creatures, so he happily plunges into the river to
approach them. Unfortunately, the strong current
prevents him from getting very near, but the otters
are clearly intrigued by their visitor and warily
move towards him for a closer look.
Later, Nigel and his team take to the river at
sunset to continue their search for a jaguar.
Research has shown that these big cats are most
active at dawn and dusk, so the team is
especially vigilant at these times. Four boats, full
of cameramen and experienced trackers, are in
constant radio contact with each other – so if
anybody spots a jaguar, there is a race against
the clock to get to the spot before the cat slinks
back into the jungle.
The sun sets quickly in the tropics, and the
nightfall brings with it a host of new creatures who
come out to hunt – including the amazing bulldog
bat, which is one of only six types of bat that
catches fish. Although the team’s night hunt fails
to yield a jaguar sighting, Nigel is pleased to have
witnessed these unusual bats feeding: “They
were really special.”
On the fifth day on the river, the team finally has
a breakthrough. Two jaguars have been spotted
by the river – but Nigel’s boat is a mile away from
the site and does not have much time to get there
before the cats disappear. “This may prove to be
one of the most extraordinarily lucky wildlife
filming encounters of my life,” says Nigel. “That’s
how rare jaguar sightings are.” Is Nigel’s dream
about to come true?