Cloak and Jaguar: Following a Cat from Desert to Courtroom
Janay Brun
Author Bio
In 1999 Janay Brun was working as a waitress in a popular Tucson, Arizona restaurant wondering what her purpose in life was. Around this same time a wild jaguar jumped in front of her on an old jeep trail seemingly answering her question.
Janay Brun then went on to become a self taught wild cat researcher. Still employed in the restaurant industry, she became an avid reader of wild cat research articles and volunteered for several organizations. After spending many days, and then years, in the field learning from biologists and wildlife field guides, Brun learned the techniques of wildlife tracking. She then went on to initiate her own mountain lion research project in the grasslands of southern Arizona.
But Brun never forgot her jaguar encounter. She always searched for further sign of the cat’s existence and earned a spot on the only jaguar research project in the United States as a volunteer. After five years of volunteering for the project she became a paid employee. Two years after that, Brun blew the whistle on the fraudulent capture of the United States’ only known jaguar. As a result, a federal criminal investigation was launched and she lost her job. Cloak and Jaguar is her debut novel.
Description
The jaguar is the rarest mammal to roam in the United States. But, Janay Brun was lucky enough to have a close encounter with this revered feline. Meeting the jaguar, known as Macho B, inspired her ten year odyssey following the cat’s trail. Their story begins in the remote lands along the southern border with Mexico and concludes in the hollowed halls of a federal courtroom in Tucson, Arizona.
In 2009 there was only one jaguar known to exist in the United States. This jaguar, a sixteen year old (eighty plus in human years) male known to the world as Macho B was trapped in a foot- hold snare set by the government agency tasked with protecting him, the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD). Two miles north of the United States-Mexico border, in an active drug and human smuggling corridor, Macho B struggled against the taut metal cable wrapped around his front, left wrist. For an unknown amount of time he struggled against the snare and tree he was tethered to until two inexperienced AZGFD field technicians found him while checking their trap line of snares supposedly set for only black bears and mountain lions. They shot a tranquilizer dart at Macho B drugging him with an anesthetic that put him out for a dangerously long time, six hours. Macho B later wobbled away from this trauma with a yellow identification ear tag punched into one ear and a GPS telemetry collar wrapped around his neck.
AZGFD claimed Macho B was trapped “inadvertently” and stated they had the proper legal permits to capture Macho B, the most endangered species to be found in the U.S. The agency responsible for endangered species, The United States Fish and Wildlife Service supported AZGFD’s assertions. What both government agencies did not know was that there was a witness to AZGFD’s activities that proved they were targeting Macho B for capture, Janay Brun. This truth forced her into becoming a whistleblower, and as a result a criminal investigation was initiated.
Book excerpt
Yellow teeth gnash at the thick metal cable. Saliva flies from the mouth of the jaguar as he growls in frustration. At age 16, his canines are still sharp enough to puncture and crush the bones of deer and javelina yet they cannot pierce the cable that keeps him tethered to a mesquite tree. On one bite his upper left canine snaps off at the root. The jaguar doesn’t notice until his next bite, which crushes the exposed nerve endings against the foreign strands of metal. He roars in pain. His loud, deep voice—akin to his distant cousins, the African lion, leopard, and tiger—echos off the canyon walls.
In his rage he jumps up the mesquite tree to which he is anchored. He slashes at its bark with his claws and bites at the trunk with one less canine. The pain from the broken tooth—dulled a bit by the adrenaline flooding his body—is ebbing, only to be replaced with shock. The temperature outside his body dips below freezing causing the temperatures inside his blood, organs, and tissues to steadily decline.
The jaguar jumps from the tree and tries to leap from the cable. His front, left wrist remains immobile in the snare while the cat tries to escape his tether by propelling his body away from the trap with his powerful hind legs. He does this over and over leaving a gouge in the earth from his efforts. The jaguar returns his focus to the tree. Claws and canines gash through the cambium of the mesquite. Blood flows into the jaguar’s mouth. His black-and -white-tipped copper hairs tear from his body as he climbs and jumps repeatedly from the tree. The mesquite also claims the outer skin of his claws and one claw tip. The jaguar is now drained. Exhausted, he sits down to rest on the icy ground. He pants. His eyes are open; a storm of rage and desperation that glares a frozen blue in the full moon light. He is nervous. In all his life he has never been unable to move. He has never been trapped.
Author Website
https://whistlingforthejaguar.wordpress.com/