Bolivia: Jaguarland, Kaa-Iya and the Beni, October 2023

Bolivian Cat Specialist Tour

October 2023

Trip Report

Bolivia is one of the most popular Royle Safaris specialist mammalwatching tour destinations and one of the places where we run at least 1 annual group tour. In October 2023 we were back in the Bolivian wetlands, chaco forest and Amazonian riverways looking for a fantastic range of wildlife including maybe 5 species of cats! Like all of our Bolivian group tours we focus on 3 distinct areas and ecosystems, firstly we visit a very special private farm / reserve which has been given the very appropriate name ‘Jaguarland Reserve’. This enormous soy farm has a healthy population of jaguars and other wildlife living on it and the surrounding farms and forests. But unlike many of their neighbours they do not hunt animals on their property and thus have created a small protected haven for lots of very cool animals. Moving on from Jaguarland we head south to the dry forests of the chaco, a unique South American ecosystem which is also home to several cat species (of which we have a great track record in seeing) and also some ecosystem endemics such as chaco peccary, southern three-banded armadillo and chaco titi. The final location we visit is to see Bolivia’s own endemic species of dolphin, yes the landlocked country of Bolivia has its own freshwater dolphin species; as well as critically endangered blue-throated macaws and other species in the Beni region near Trinidad in the Amazon.

This particular trip (as with all of our Bolivian tours) was guided by the fantastic Nick McPhee and his team of drivers, spotters and cooks. We had a group of 6 clients with us. We also had some fantastic success and saw a total of 34 mammals seen.

The trip was another 5 cat trip – which is third time in 4 trips we have seen five species of cat (Jaguar, Puma, Ocelot, Jaguarundi and Geoffroy’s Cat) on this trip. Below is a little summary of the places visited and the animals seen in each followed by a sightings log. We paid particular attention to the mammals, lesser focus was on birds and we don’t have all species seen recorded, just the larger and conspicuous species, the same goes for herps.

Curichi Reserve

Before we left Santa Cruz to head to Jaguarland Reserve we spent an hour or so looking for some mammal species in the small Curichi forest, there are several species of primate here including the specialist species for our purposes and we were unsuccessful in seeing here, but we did see Azara’s capuchin and Bolivian squirrel monkey.

Jaguarland Reserve

Jaguarland was very successful with several good jaguar sightings (including large male and adult female) along with great ocelot, multiple close Brazilian tapirs (at least 6 sightings), tayras and one vehicle also had puma, jaguarundi and a giant anteater (which is very unusual here). Other mammals which we saw here included South American coati, Azara’s agouti, capybara, grey brocket deer, marsh deer, Southern Amazon red squirrel, brown-throated three-toed sloth, collared peccary, six-banded armadillo, crab-eating fox and a couple of Bolivian river dolphins. Dolphins sometimes get trapped in pools and shrinking water ways as the dry season goes on and that is the reason for these dolphins still being here. Along with these mammals we also had 5 species of primate; Peruvian spider monkey, Bolivian red howler, Bolivian squirrel monkey, black-striped capuchin and Azara’s night monkey (amazing sighting of this nocturnal primate). Other sightings including wonderful toco toucans, red-and-green macaws, blue-and-yellow macaws, chestnut-fronted macaw, southern screamers, greater rhea, great- horned owls and as far as herps went a very nice red-snouted treefrogs, Brazilian green racer and hundreds of yacre caiman.

Kaa Iya National Park

After leaving Jaguarland Reserve the group went back to Santa Cruz for a night before we left for the second major destination of the trip; Kaa Iya National Park. This is the largest protected area of Gran Chaco forest in the world and whilst the level of protection is not great, there are still huge tracts of intact forest home to much wildlife.

The time here was remarkably successful with 5 species of cat being seen in 24 hours! These were jaguar (multiple were seen including a female and with a young cub), puma (including very good sightings of a subadult in the road), numerous ocelots, jaguarundi and a nice posing Geoffroy’s cat. Other species of mammals seen when in Kaa Iya included black-tailed marmoset, Brazilian tapeti, Brazilian tapir (including a nice stripy baby), Chaco titi, crab- eating fox, southern tamandua, gray-brocket deer, red-brocket deer and southern three-banded armadillos. Then non mammal highlights included short-eared owls, fork-tailed flycatchers, four-toed tegu, red-footed tortoise glittering-bellied emerald and neotropical rattlesnake.

Gran Morras / Trinidad

Following on from Kaa Iya National Park we went back to Sant Cruz again for another overnight and then we fly to Trinidad further north in Bolivia than we had travelled so far. Here we went for a cruise along the Mamore River and found a nice pod of Bolivian river dolphins. We then headed to a special private reserve which is possibly the best place in the world to see the critically endangered endemic blue-throated macaw (which we had great sightings of) as well as some black howlers and another tayra.

For anyone interesting in visiting Bolivia for wildlife and in particular mammals we have spaces available on ou second group tour for October 2024 (17-29 October 2024), our first tour is now full. We have also started taking bookings for our 2025 tour also. You just need to contact us at info@royle-safaris.co.uk and we will happily provide information and answer any questions you may wish.

Species List

Mammals

Photos from Mihir Zaveri & Mark Langston