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The jaguars don’t know it yet, but soon they’ll be free to roam Argentina’s Iberá wetlands, becoming the first apex predators to do so in a century. Three adults and the two-year-olds Amarí and Mbareté currently live in an enclosure on San Alonso, a patch of high ground in Iberá’s patchwork of flooded wilderness, lagoons, jungle, and grasslands. Once a pristine habitat, the region has lost much of its wildlife since the early 20th century, when ranchers moved into the area. People killed off native predators to protect livestock, and many species were decimated to satisfy a burgeoning market for fur, leather, and feathers.
Now, wildlife is making a comeback in Iberá, thanks to an ecological restoration effort spearheaded by the nonprofit Rewilding Argentina Foundation. Because of the region’s now-protected status and the reintroduction of locally extirpated species to reconstruct ecological communities, the area is ...
