PREVIEW

WORDS BYLINE: Hayley Chamberlain

A mother jaguar and her adorable cub have been spotted in the wilds of Argentina for the first time in decades – in what conservationists are hailing as a huge leap forward for one of South America's most threatened big cats.

Local nature guides Darío Soraire and Pablo Luna were boating down the Bermejo River on July 30th when they came across the extraordinary sight: a female jaguar and her tiny cub lounging on the riverbank in El Impenetrable National Park, Chaco Province.

Stunning photographs show the young cub, believed to be around five months old, nestled by its mother, Nalá – a jaguar born in captivity and released into the wild just last year by conservation group Rewilding Argentina.

The sighting marks a pivotal moment in efforts to reintroduce jaguars to the region, where female jaguars had not been seen since 1990. It’s a sign that the ambitious programme to restore Argentina’s top predator is finally bearing fruit.

Nalá is part of a breeding initiative launched in 2019 after a lone male jaguar, named Qaramta, was tracked and collared in the park. With no females in the area, Qaramta faced a genetic dead end – until captive-bred females were introduced from the Jaguar Reintroduction Center in Iberá Park.

Nalá was one of the first to be born through this programme and was released into the wild in August 2024. Her cub is now living proof that the jaguar might once again roam freely in this remote and rugged landscape.

Sebastián Di Martino, Conservation Director of Rewilding Argentina, explained just how high the stakes are: “Wild jaguars are holding out in isolated pockets of Northern Argentina, but they need genetic diversity and connectivity to thrive. Creating a breeding population not only brings us one step closer to the jaguar’s recovery, it offers the blueprint to extending their comeback throughout the Gran Chaco.”

Once spread across vast areas of Argentina, the jaguar has lost over 95% of its historic range in the country. Today, only an estimated 200 to 250 individuals remain in the wild – many living alone or in fragmented groups, scattered across inaccessible terrain.

The return of the jaguar to El Impenetrable National Park is part of a broader restoration effort in the Gran Chaco, a vast, yet little-known dry forest that spans Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay. Despite being South America's second-largest ecosystem after the Amazon, the Chaco remains largely unprotected and under severe threat from deforestation and agriculture.

Kristine Tompkins, President of Tompkins Conservation, applauded the news, saying, “The Gran Chaco is a vital ecosystem shared by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, yet few have ever heard of it. Today’s action brings hope to protecting so many species and I hope these jaguars bring worldwide attention to the challenges facing both the people and wildlife of the Chaco. It's proof that we can change the trajectory that we're on and fight mass extinction by working together.”

In nearby Corrientes Province, jaguar rewilding has already transformed the Iberá wetlands, turning the area into a hotspot for nature-based tourism – and injecting fresh life into the local economy. Conservationists hope the same model can bring new opportunity to the Chaco, one of the most overlooked yet ecologically important regions on the planet.