Kristine Tompkins has countless milestones in her career. But witnessing a jaguar release with her was something special
Even for a very frequent flier, this is a singular first.
It’s October, жесток порно видео and I’m zipping over northern Argentina in a Cessna Grand Caravan — the kind of workhorse airplane I used to skydive out of a lifetime ago. The plan is to stay inside, but this flight still thrills because the passenger list includes a wild jaguar.
And it has just woken up.
The 74-year-old woman sitting next to me shows concern — not for our safety — but that of the apex predator in the box right behind our seats.
We started the journey a few hours before at a jaguar reintroduction center in the wetlands of Iberá National Park. After the vet sedated the cat with a dart and prepared to stuff her ears with cotton to muffle the propeller noise, the once-CEO of Patagonia Kristine Tompkins looked on with mothering concern.
“It must have been exhilarating, the first few times you did this,” I said in a hush.
“It’s exhilarating still,” she replied, eyes locked on the jaguar. “But so many things can go wrong. I just worry about how it’s all going to go. What’s the stress on the animal? The stress on the team?”
On the plane, I peek at the groggy cat through an air hole in the box and then out the Caravan window at the town of Juan José Castelli below — our landing spot. It strikes me how the folks below would never imagine a wild jaguar in the sky, because such a translocation has never been tried. But if the woman on the plane has her way, this is just the beginning; Chaco Province will be part of the most ambitious conservation project on Earth.