Jaguar's Shadow: Searching for a Mythic Cat (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780300122251)

In the tradition of Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, an intimate portrait of the endangered, exotic, and elusive jaguar

When the nature writer Richard Mahler discovers that wild jaguars are prowling a remote corner of his home state of New Mexico, he embarks on a determined quest to see in the flesh a big, beautiful cat that is the stuff of legend--yet verifiably real.

Mahler's passion sets in motion a years-long adventure through trackless deserts, steamy jungles, and malarial swamps, as well as a confounding immersion in centuries-old debates over how we should properly regard these powerful predators: as varmints or as icons, trophies or gods? He is drawn from border badlands south to Panama's rain forest along a route where the fate of nearly all wildlife now rests in human hands. Mahler's odyssey introduces him to unrepentant poachers, pragmatic ranchers, midnight drug-runners, ardent conservationists, trance-induced shamans, hopeful biologists, stodgy bureaucrats, academic philosophers, macho hunters, and gentle Maya Indians. Along the way, he is forced to reconsider the true meaning of his search--and the enduring symbolism of the jaguar.

Author: Richard Mahler
ISBN-10: 030012225X
ISBN-13: 9780300122251
Publisher: Yale University Press
Language: English
Published: 09/07/2009
Pages: 376
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.30d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 11/01/2009 pg. 9
Publisher's Weekly Annex 09/21/2009