Heart of the Jaguar: The Extraordinary Conservation Effort to Save the Americas' Legendary Cat

A fascinating story of the movement to protect the jaguar, and the man who devoted his life to saving the species.


Once indigenous to North America, the jaguar is the largest cat in the Western Hemisphere. A resilient and efficient predator, it is one of the wildest creatures left on the planet. However, one million years after it appeared in the New World, the species is struggling to survive.


Heart of the Jaguar tells the story of the extraordinary undertaking to save the jaguar, which began in the jungles of Belize in the 1980s, and more than a decade later became the Jaguar Corridor Initiative. James Campbell tracks the legacy of Alan Rabinowitz—“the Indiana Jones of wildlife ecology”—a formidable but damaged man who fought for the corridor that now extends 8,000 latitudinal miles. From the Bering Land Bridge to pre-Columbian jungle temples adorned with jaguar sculptures to the internet, ferias, and jaguar preserves, Heart of the Jaguar takes readers across two continents in search of the jaguar’s past and present—and its future. View Less