Looking for a gift suitable for giving not only during the holiday season, but year-round? May I suggest a jaguar. The cat, not the car.

Photo: US Fish & Wildlife

While researching my new book, The Jaguar’s Shadow: Searching for a Mythic Cat, I spent a day interviewing a pair of prominent zoologists in the jungle of northern Belize. They surprised me by stating forthrightly their belief that today’s field scientists have a responsibility—more than that, a duty—to commit themselves to social and political actions related to conservation of the animals they study.

Barro Colorado jaguar. Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution

Scientists were thrilled this past April when a jaguar walked by a surveillance camera on Panama's Barro Colorado, a scrap of rainforest that became an island after creation of the Panama Canal nearly a century ago.

The elusive Southwest jaguar (Photo: Arizona Game and Fish)

I am delighted to be guest-blogging on The Perch in conjunction with the release of my new book, The Jaguar's Shadow: Searching for a Mythic Cat. This book is a hybrid. It is a primer on the natural history of the largest feline in the Americas, a summary of conservation efforts on the endangered animal's behalf, and the story of the myriad ways indigenous peoples have held Panthera onca sacred. I have tied these elements together with a narrative of my obsessive multi-year quest to actually see a jaguar in the wild.