Ousado the Collared Male
Ousado (Ousadso means bold or daring in Portuguese) is a large radio collared male jaguar that at 4 years of age survived severe burns in 2020 when wildfires ravaged the Pantanal and many animals were burned. He was half his normal weight and with burned paws when he was rescued. After several months of innovative veterinary care using fish skin grafts on his burned paws he was successfully released back into the Pantanal and has been doing fine ever since.
The radio collar placed on him at the time is no longer functional. It was wisely decided to leave it on him since he is such a successful hunter and it does not seem to bother him. Sedating him to take the radio collar off is a huge risk due to the potential for drowning.
Ousado has a unique hunting style: He literally swims underwater and comes up under his unsuspecting prey. It does not always work because he sometimes misjudges his exit point, something we saw one time when he unwittingly swam underwater past a capybara.
Ousado Stalking a Capybara
As we motored downriver we came across these two capybara
Moving further along we could see Ousado hidden in the vegetation around 60 yards further away
He had his eye on the lead capybara
He waited patiently in the vegetation while we watched silently in anticipation of what he would do next
He vanished underwater as the capybara took note of his disappearance
Ousado did not go deep enough and the top of his back was visible as he approached the capybara
The capybara saw Ousado’s back as he neared
In a flash he catapulted into the air…..
…. and jumped towards the middle of the river
The last we saw of the capybara was a splash
Ousado heard the splash and came to the surface
One last look to make sure the capybara was not resurfacing near him
A good shake to get some water out of those ears
It was time to continue downstream hidden along the river’s edge to look for other prey
He would stop on occasion and look downstream for prey
We stayed with him at a respectable distance and took advantage of the 500 mm lens to watch his stalking technique
He left the river after not finding any additional prey
Ousado eventually ended up on the embankment with a good view of the river below
Time for some housekeeping
Then a good scratch
A quick glance at the river for any action
One last yawn before we left him for his nap time (and our lunch)