Jaguarundi

[guppiecat]

A long long time ago in a state far far away I visited the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum with my then girlfriend. That particular trip created many memories, not all of them entirely pleasant... but one of the strongest was my first ever glimpse of a jaguarundi. For those that don't know what one is, you can click the link and read Wikipedia for a while. I'll be here when you get back.

Anyway, I had a camera, one of those cheap film things... the bottom of the line of point-and-shoot that you could get in the late 90's. It did fine to take photos of general stuff, but taking photos of a secretative black cat at the back of a shady enclosure... not so much. So, for about ten years I was just left with a general impression.

It was a cat that moved the way that cats do in poetry, not real life: smoothly, quietly, supplely. It was like someone poured Mercury into a cat-shaped mold and let it loose on the world. It seemed to be half-shadow. I spent about half an hour watching it, and at times all I could see was a movement of black within black. Sometimes it was just the gleam from one eye.

When I returned to Arizona in the late 2000s, I was disappointed that the museum no longer had a jaguarundi there. Apparently they're not quite as immortal they seem.

This spring, however, I took a trip to Costa Rica with friends. One day we got up for breakfast and I was browsing through from flyers laying on a table and I saw a cat that seemed somewhat different from most. It was, in fact, a jaguarundi. The flyer was for the Puma Rescue Center, which (unsurprisingly) rescues big cats and rehabilitates them. I made a mention to minnehaha B that I wanted to go, and to my surprise, it turned out to be possible. After a few phone calls and discussions, it was determined that the center actually did have a jaguarundi, the other folks on the tour were either interested in going (or in humoring me (either way, I am very grateful)), and a few days later, there we were.

I spent about an hour taking this set of photos. The jaguarundi was missing a leg, prompting some jokes from certain people about how the next one they found for me would be whole, but you know, even missing a leg it moved more gracefully than many cats. I got to see it sleep, move around, get irritated at the clicky two-legs around, eat a bit, bathe and go back to sleep. For most people, The Slothery would probably have been the highlight of the trip. For me, it was that one hour, when I got to watch a cat that is still largely a mystery to the Western world.

Comments

[mplsfish.livejournal.com]

I really like the washy ones. How the tongue is in focus but the head is blurry with motion. Cool.