January 9, 2026 • 34 mins
Episode summary Jack Humphrey interviews filmmaker Austin Alvarado about his work on the new Fin & Fur Films documentary “Borderlands Jaguar,” which documents jaguars at the Northern Jaguar Reserve in Sonora, Mexico. Austin shares his journey from river guide in West Texas to wildlife cinematographer, detailing the intense dedication required for remote camera work — […]
Read full article: Episode 165: Filming the Elusive El Tigre for “Borderlands Jaguar” with Austin Alvarado
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(00:03):
It's not just setting up a camera leaving
and coming back and hoping for the best.
It's doing the research on the front end
and then understanding behavior on an individual level.
And that, when you nail the shot exactly
the way you're intending to nail that shot
because you put in the time that could've
taken weeks, could've taken months, could've taken years
to get exactly what you thought it was
(00:24):
that animal was gonna do at the time
you thought it was gonna do it. Yeah.
It is one of the best feelings ever.
(01:01):
You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast.
I'm your host, Jack Humphrey.
Near the end of 2025, I spoke to
Ryan Uhlinger from Fin and Fur Films about
the new release of a documentary called American
Southwest.
The film received a lot of attention, and
the visual storytelling was spectacular.
(01:23):
Today, I have another treat for listeners who
loved that documentary.
Borderlands Jaguar is set to release on January
13 and is a remarkable exploration of the
rugged, untamed heart of the Northern Jaguar Reserve.
Joining me today is Austin Alvarado, a wildlife
cinematographer
who traded his oars as a Rio Grande
river guide for the patient, grueling work of
(01:43):
tracking one of the most elusive predators on
the planet.
Austin doesn't just take photos. He embeds himself
in the landscape, spending weeks in the remote
backcountry to fine tune equipment and wait for
a living shadow to pass through the frame.
What makes this film and our conversation so
compelling is the human transformation
at its center. We dive into the story
(02:04):
of the Northern Jaguar Reserve in Mexico, where
a cultural shift around jaguars is quietly taking
place.
We talk about the men who once hunted
jaguars but have now become their fiercest advocates
and protectors.
It's a masterclass in empathy and community, proving
that the best way to protect a corridor
is to first heal the relationship between the
people and the land.
(02:25):
Austin brings a quiet, heavy authority to his
work,
a perspective sharpened by grit and stillness in
those long, solitary months in the high desert.
I think you'll find his journey as inspiring
as the footage he captures.
To find out where you can see the
film and when it launches, make sure you
go to rewilding.org/podepisode165
(02:46):
for more details. Austin, welcome to the Rewilding
Earth podcast.
Hey. Thanks. I'm excited to be here. I
am super excited. I'm kind of becoming a
fan here of Fin and Fur films and
all the people you run around with. We
just had Ryan Olinger on not too long
ago, and he was teasing the American Southwest.
It hadn't come out yet either. And so
when I told people
(03:07):
we were going to have you on and
and they're like, why? I can't even see
what where what do you mean? It's like
it's a pending film. Borderlands Jaguar. Come on.
You gotta get on board. So I'm learning
more and more about your little gang of
wildlife photographers and editors and,
and the masterful work that you guys do.
First of all, congratulations. Borderlands is beautiful,
(03:28):
exciting,
and even a little tear jerking. So great
job. Oh, man. I really appreciate that. Yeah.
Thanks.
And and, you know, the gang the gang
is just a group of friends trying to
figure it out, so I appreciate the recognition
there. Oh, man. It doesn't look like that
from this end. And I would really love
to go behind the scenes with you guys
sometime and just watch how you do what
you do because I bet you it has
that feeling of just we're out here doing
(03:49):
our thing. But, man, the thing that you
guys do is world class stuff. I said
it to Ryan, like, a 100 times. I
think he got tired of me saying it,
but it's for real. And I'm I'm hearing
it from everybody. It's not just me. So
we should just get into it. I I
was doing some background work here looking at
you, and I have to start with I
don't know where you typically start your story,
getting people caught up to who you are
(04:10):
and and, where you've been to this point.
But I found out you're a river rat,
like a serious river rat. Man, through and
through. Yeah. I I ended up living out
in West Texas in a small town called
Terlingua, Texas, right on the border between Big
Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National
Park. And that was to be a river
guide on the Rio Grande. I fell in
love with the Rio. I was only gonna
(04:32):
be in Tjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjern
I met several people from the from the
Fennifer
family out there. And, yeah, I kinda owe
everything
really to the Rio Grande and and Big
(04:54):
Bend. Well, how did photography
get started for you? That's kind of a
crazy thing to do. You must have heard
that's no way to make a living, and
yet you did it anyway. What's up with
that? Lucky for me, at the time, I
was already not making a living. I don't
know if you know this, but river guiding
isn't exactly a, a very fruitful
career path. You were already a pro. Yeah.
(05:15):
Exactly. I was good I was good at
being broke. I was actually an expert at
being broke. And so when my, my curiosity
with photography came up, it was really just
me with with a pretty simple T Rebel
Canon camera just going around figuring it out.
But really, it wasn't until I was asked
to be a part of a film with
Ben called The River and the Wall that
I got an insight into the film world.
(05:36):
And really, the biggest thing I got out
of that trip I shouldn't say the biggest
thing, but one of many important things I
got out of that trip were that the
people filming,
you know, while they're talented
and very experienced,
I trust myself to learn a skill set
and I trust myself to be just as
hard working. And so I I really got
motivated to figure out film after that whole
(05:58):
experience. And, for a while, I was just
piddling around, working for free, volunteering wherever I
could until eventually I got my first paid
gig and did well enough in that that
kept on evolving to some other gigs. And
here we are now. It's been a really
privileged and fortunate fortunate
path to this point. Yeah. Here we are
now like you're an old man, but you're
(06:18):
still just starting out, which is just I'm
envious for that reason, that you've figured it
out. You figured out what you love, and
you figured out how to make it pay
and to be able to stay in it
and everything. And still, really, with the credits
you have under your belt and you're just
getting started, it's it's gotta be it feels
like it should be very, very exciting. Yeah.
(06:38):
I've gone through a lot of life experiences
lately that have really made me reflect on
truly how unique and special it is that
I get to do what I do and
I and I don't take that lightly. I
don't mean to brag about it. I just
I it's more to say how grateful I
am for everything that I do. So I
wanted to talk a little bit more
about the film and, you know, for the
other films that you had done leading up
(06:59):
to this, it feels to me like this
is kind of I mean, you're sharing the
spotlight with just a couple of people here.
Is this one of the first ones or
the first one where you're really kind of
taking the lead more than you had in
previous films? Yeah. No. I've been
fortunate enough to be in front of camera
for a few other projects,
It's always hard to see yourself in front
(07:20):
of a camera
and on a screen. And so it's while
it's not my favorite thing per se, it
definitely makes me reflect and and feel appreciative
of of of being able to to play
that role.
I've done quite a bit of camera trapping
in the past, quite a bit bit of
cinematography in the past where I've taken lead
on different scenes, different projects. And so being
(07:41):
doing the actual work that you see on
camera,
that's not necessarily new to me. In fact,
I would say I'm I'm very comfortable doing
the work itself. I have a whole lot
more experience doing the work than actually being
in front of camera and showing the work.
But yeah. So Northern Jaguar Reserve, was that
a new place to you when you started
all of this, or had you been there
before?
It was a totally new place to me.
(08:02):
We were lucky to have Ryan Allinger, who
was part of the Fennifer team, and he
had spent a lot of time down there
with his wife, Prieta,
in the past. And so he had a
familiar knowledge of the place, and and he
was super, super
motivating in in us wanting to go down
there and check it out. And so we
had some background information from him, but
being there for the first time, it is
(08:23):
it's a reserve, but it's surrounded by these
other ranches. And and once upon a time,
it is a ranch itself. And one one
of my first thoughts when I stepped foot
on it was this must be one of
the wildest ranches
I've ever stepped foot on. You know, you
you go on ranches out here in in
in The US,
and you feel like it's maybe not curated
(08:45):
or manicured necessarily, but it just it there's
a level of of wilderness that's taken away
from the human impact of just managing ranches
here in The US. There
US. They're in the North Northern Jaguar Reserve
and the surrounding ranches. It feels as wild
as if it as if they weren't ranches,
if that makes any sense. Yeah. You went
through a lot of places to get there,
(09:06):
and you've seen an awful lot of cow
burnt landscape, and I know you're
a huge hiker and you've been everywhere in
the,
Southwest, all over Texas, Big Bend, all of
that, so you know what the usual stuff
looks like. And I imagine walking onto this
reserve
had an impact based on just comparison. Oh,
a 100%. A 100%. Like I said, it
(09:27):
it just felt so much more wild than
any other human managed ranch I'd ever been
on. There is a degree of danger might
not be the right word, but a a
degree of I'm vulnerable
here and and not because of another human,
but because this is real wilderness set that
most people, I would say, aren't just ready
(09:48):
to be out out in any given day.
And that excites me. As someone who loves
being in those type of places, it's something
I seek. I seek the wild spaces
that you feel, you know? I feel like
a lot of times nature and the outdoors,
different levels, different degrees of wild, and they're
all beneficial
for some reason to somebody.
(10:09):
But finding those places that really kinda make
make you a little bit more perked up
and alert, that that really excites me. Yeah.
Doug Peacock's famous, I'll paraphrase, but he says
it's not wilderness unless there's something out there
that can eat you. Exactly.
You're down there, you're there, and you have
this monumental
task before you. How much of what's on
(10:29):
the film did you guys set out to
do, and how much was, holy crap, did
we just do that? Our first initial plan
was for Ryan Olinger, Ben Masters, and myself
to head down there as the first initial
convoy
and really get an idea of what we
think is possible and what we think,
is not possible really. That's just as important.
(10:49):
And we got the lay of the land
working with the ranch hand, working with the
researchers and the biologists,
Gail, Lackey, Lackey,
all these amazing human beings who have been
on the reserve for a long time
who, mind you, without their knowledge and without
their expertise, none of what we did would
have been possible. But we went down there
first time and took about two to three
(11:10):
weeks to really kind of get a lay
of the land. We set up a a
few of the research camera traps, just kinda
your typical Browning, Reconyx,
things that you see used for research. And
then we set up some of our more
high end camera traps. We go back to
The US after that, after that two or
three week stint, and we really game plan
on a storyline. Mind you, we've done jaguar,
(11:32):
we've worked on a jaguar film before a
shorter piece out in, in El Cielo, which
is a cloud forest on the border state
of Taino Litas with Texas. And so we
we kind of had a a concept of
what was possible there thinking that maybe the
same sort of storyline could be possible or
a similar storyline could be possible in the
Northern Jaguar Reserve. When we got to the
(11:52):
Northern Jaguar, we immediately realized how different a
situation and how different of a story this
was gonna have to be. Fast forward with
kind of having a concept of what we
want to capture, I started going back, I
think, every six weeks for about two to
three weeks at a time, and to get
there is a journey. I fly from Texas,
(12:12):
Dale, or Tucson and then make the six
to eight hour drive to the closest village
and then about a six to eight hour
drive through mountain roads to get to the
first camp. My camera traps are set up
on the reserve
at various locations. And so each location, give
or take two or three hours of driving
between each location and then hiking up to
that location. And hiking can take anywhere between
(12:34):
a few hours to a a full day.
And
the logistics of of just getting to these
cameras, you know, we're talking a week's worth
of work just to go see them, just
to put hands on them, just put eyes
on them. We
end up not having a lot of success
for the first few months. And
granted, camera trap work is always pretty frustrating
work. It's a lot of problem solving. It's
(12:55):
a lot of fixing errors. Anything that can
go wrong will go wrong. And it's it's
really just staying on top of the maintenance,
the more so staying committed to what we
think is possible. On a day to day,
like I said, we could be driving a
few hours and then hiking
a few hours, and then I could very
well stay put at that same location
(13:15):
for days on end just to make sure
that everything's working right, that I'm that it's
working the way I wanna work, that the
angles are appropriately working at nighttime as well
as during the daytime,
that my lights are coming in at the
right angle that I'm hoping they come in
from, that the focal length is right. You
know, this is
guess and check on a very long scale.
(13:35):
We have an ultimate goal, but really, all
these little fine details
take a lot of time to get just
right. And we operate
under that same sort of procedure for months
on end until we start getting some real
fruitful footage.
And from there is where we got really
creative. In the film, you made it pretty
clear how hard you guys were struggling and
(13:58):
I was gonna ask you, who's who's the
biggest wildlife vandal of trail cameras in your
experience? Who's the one that screws up the
most of your stuff by finding the camera
and playing with it? I have an idea,
but but I wanted to hear what you
think your favorite one is. By far, bears.
Bears are the most curious,
just most aggressive little rascals, and they'll get
(14:19):
into just about anything. We we try to
do a good job
of really setting our cameras in a very
strong way. And, man, I've seen bears
completely knock over what what we would imagine
to be just a a bulletproof setup, and
it's,
yeah, they'll they'll get into just about anything.
Well, I wanted to ask that. It kinda
brings a dramatic,
(14:41):
flare to the whole thing because it's so
hard to do what you do. And then
you describe very eloquently how you need to
just become part of the landscape. You gotta
visit. You gotta stay a long time. You
gotta research. You've gotta you gotta get a
feel for places. Almost, I would imagine,
I think it's gonna be tonight, and I
think she's gonna be there. Or I think
this or you know, I imagine you have
(15:01):
to get to that level. And is that
where the the risky thing the risky part
comes in where you're just like, let's just
go for it. I think I'm just this
is the biggest hunch ever, but I know
she's gonna be there. And that's exactly right.
Just hearing you describe that makes me excited.
Getting into the flow state of starting to
understand pattern, starting to understand behavior of an
of an individual.
(15:22):
With this, it was jaguar. But with any
any animal that we're camera trapping, it's not
just setting up a camera, leaving and coming
back and hoping for the best. It's doing
the research on the front end and then
understanding behavior on an individual level. And that
when you nail the shot exactly the way
you're intending to nail that shot,
because you put in the time that could've
(15:42):
taken weeks, could've taken months, could've taken years
to get exactly what you thought it was
that animal was gonna do at the time
you thought it was gonna do it, yeah,
it is one of the best feelings ever.
Now you guys on the credits didn't do
this alone, and no one ever does. Right?
When I'm talking mainly here about the ranch
hands and the former jaguar hunters, what's it
(16:03):
like working with somebody who used to hunt
jaguars?
Yeah. Yeah. First, I do nothing in wildlife
filmmaking and conservation work that isn't completely dependent
on the work of the people doing the
work on the ground, doing the work every
day. The experts are biologists, the ranch hands,
and this was no exception. Miguel, the ranch
(16:23):
manager, head researcher there, Locolacky, Barayo, the these
ranch hands, these guys who used to hunt
jaguar on the reserve itself, everyone added such
a level of insight that made everything that
we did there possible. With that said, I
don't get a lot of opportunity to see
the actual human development side of conservation
(16:44):
from a cultural shift towards a back half
of of of an an intended project. And
what I mean by that is with a
lot of stuff, you know, there there's a
side a and side b of how you
deal with whatever contribution
issue or management
strategy you may have. And in this instance,
that shift from the people who actually used
(17:06):
to hunt jaguars
on the actual reserve itself to then become
the protectors of the jaguars,
to then be the spokesman
to the other neighboring ranches,
to invite them
on
conservation projects to do that same sort of
protective work for these zaguars.
It makes you realize how conservation work, along
(17:27):
with any work, is a matter of just
having empathy and understanding. And to be around
these guys who who bust their ass and
and work hard to do what they do
and to have no ego about to do
what they do to versus now, I found
it extremely, extremely
inspiring
and gives a real humility to the work
that is conservation because conservation only works
(17:50):
if people buy in. And the most important
people to buy in are those who might
have been part of the problem in the
past. And I don't wanna say part in
fact, that was that was a bad phrase.
I'm part of the problem, but just had
different opposing views previously.
Yeah. They're incredible. And these guys
changed their mindset
of what they think of jaguars.
But by all means, like, they're still ranchers
(18:10):
in Northern Mexico. Every sense, every feeling you
get from them is still true to who
they are. It's it's a vaquero
in in in that Northern
ranching world that
that that lifestyle and that feeling you get
from them is is all the same. They've
just had a change of heart is all.
And I think that's super important because it's
easy to write people off when they
(18:31):
may seem what you're not familiar or agreeable
with. Really, it's just a it's just a
matter of of having empathy. What about surrounding
communities? I've talked to a good number of,
JIWAR activists and biologists and Chris Tompkins and
and Yeah. And about what they're trying to
do is mostly community work, community outreach and
(18:52):
education,
and also
showing the money. Like, your economy is based
on this
Exactly. Which isn't good for the Jaguars,
but we will be there for you and
help you with the economy and the switch.
And it's just amazing how they get that
accomplished
from people who have such set views about
things. Oh, you got it. You're you're you're
(19:13):
getting it right on. You know, it's I
think it goes back to having that empathy,
right? Understanding that this is that there are
certain things that it that affect
a livelihood
and certain realities that we do need to
face. And
the economics behind it is
one of them. Nino is a program that
the Northern Jaguar Reserve is working with alongside
(19:33):
these neighboring ranches where they give prize money
for documentation of various cats, not just jaguars,
all cats. And there's
a different scaling system
on how much
they make per photo or per individual.
And it has had
an immense impact on
people willing, right, just willing to hear what
(19:55):
they have to say
as far as the importance of what they're
doing with the Jaguar Reserve. It seems so
simple, but it's
so profoundly
unique
in a lot of different conservation work where
you're putting your your money where your mouth
is and and reckoning with the economics of
it all, which is huge. Alright. I wanna
hear
what you learned about jaguars
(20:18):
that you
didn't know before this project.
You know, I mentioned earlier that I had
spent some time with jaguars in Tamaulipas in
El Cielo. And the the
level of interaction
a human to jaguar interaction in El Cielo,
in Tamaulipas
compared to that in the Northern Jaguar Reserve,
(20:38):
is night and day. In El Cielo, their
issues are literally in town. They're they have
pets that if they're not guarded well enough,
they're not put away well enough, that they
may be liable to being
preyed on by jaguars.
They have
sightings
constantly by people. They have a closer vicinity,
(21:00):
and that's due to a lot of variables.
But they have incorporated the jaguar as one
of their leading tourist attractions as well. They
really champion the fact that they live with
jaguars there. Compared to
the reserve where we know jaguars are there,
but the sightings are few and far between.
They have such a big
(21:20):
territory, and they have these deep canyons where
they can get lost
that the actual human interaction with the jaguars
is pretty limited. And I was pretty I
shouldn't say surprised, but I was I was
caught off guard by the fact that we
have this amazing reserve doing great work with
a pretty limited amount of human jaguar interaction.
(21:40):
It's the the fact that the reserve
plays a role in, let's call it a
a a corridor or a highway system
between
South Of the Reserve and North Of Reserve,
which encompasses The US as well. How important
that is and the fact that the pieces
around the reserve still feel so wild is
what makes it that much more impactful and
(22:01):
that much more important
compared to El Cielo and Tamaulipas
where
while their interactions are pretty
embedded to their life on a a sheer
volume level, the reality is is they have
to cover a 100 miles
of human population
corridors that would make it nearly impossible to
cross highways and roads and and buildings
(22:23):
that they're really kinda cut off. And when
I say cut off, I mean cut off
from the North, from The US. And understanding
how it's not just about where they're located,
but how they're connected to everything else. Maybe
I didn't learn that, but more I acknowledge
the importance of that being on the reserve.
I think the long running joke is people
who study, like, mountain lions, and they've studied
(22:45):
them professionally and went to school, everything, and
they haven't seen one in the wild yet.
And then all these people on the Internet
just post pictures of mountain lions really get
their goats.
Oh, yeah. I mean oh, it get it
gets me going sometime. I mean, I've seen
I've filled mountain lions. I've I've been around
mountain lions. It is very hard to see
a mountain lion nonetheless. And when people just
(23:05):
casually post up a a cat that just
cross around it, I'm like, oh my gosh.
It takes me months, months of day and
day out work to even get us a
a glance at one. Much less They don't
even they don't know. They don't know. Oh
my gosh. They really don't know. So I've
been telling that little joke for a long,
long time, but I finally got the real
life in in real time reaction
(23:27):
of someone who understands
exactly
how frustrating that is. Oh, man. It really
is. Yeah. It's Yeah. It's always
not offensive, but also pretty frustrating whenever people
are like, oh, why didn't you just post
up over here? This is where I saw
one two days ago. Went well, because I'm
not a psychic.
Yeah. I like it when, in the picture,
(23:48):
you can see their eyes are just undulating,
meaning that the person just turned around and
saved his own life by doing so because
that cat was taking a closer look at
him. Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly. Yeah. I'm glad that people have those
experiences, and I'm sure that the people who
have those experiences have a much bigger, stronger
appreciation for nature than the day before. I'm
(24:08):
sure. I think it's hard to to come
across a big cat and not feel feel
a sense of of of vulnerability and and
and and a new sense of of of
appreciation and respect. I saw a preteen
mountain lion in person with a rescue.
I can't remember. I think it was in
Arizona or some place, and they were going
around and just had them there for education.
(24:29):
And now there's something about being really, really
close to something that big and wild and
powerful, a predator especially
No, man. I don't know how to, to
this day, even describe it. I've been lucky
enough to have a few different species and
individual cats look right at me, and and
and they know that I know that we're
looking at each other. And Yeah. Oh, yeah.
When they when they observe you, you know
(24:51):
you're yeah. That's whole that's totally different. Yeah.
It's it feels spiritual. It feels
it feels damn scary. It feels exciting. It
feels, you know, that part of me is
like, oh, I think I'm having a real
connection with this cat. Meanwhile, the cat's like,
I wonder if I could take him down
or not. But, yeah, no. There's
there is a a mystery whenever that kinda
(25:13):
locked eye experience happens.
It it it it's happened few or far
between, but it has happened, and it's, man,
it's it's it's something else. I'm sure the
cats don't go back to the little cat
bar and tell all their buddies, man, I
came so close to a human today, you
guys. He smelled like crap. Yeah. I was
gonna eat him, but no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Give me a peck. So all alone, you're
(25:34):
out in a place that it took days
to get to or and you just have
a time to think. Everything's done, and you're
waiting or you gotta sleep, but you can't
sleep, and you're just going through thoughts. Something
really profound that happened that day or that
week, and you wish everybody knew about it.
You wish you could get that feeling across
somehow, an insight that you gained from something
very profound happening out there. Yeah. You know,
(25:57):
I don't I don't think this is unique
to hear, but I'm I I don't have
this feeling too often. Often. But understanding that
we are part of this wild world, and
we get to be as wild as we
intend to be. And it can be super
super intimidating at first. It can be extremely
uncomfortable at first. But we are part of
all this. And when you're and and I
(26:18):
remember I was on on the side of
the river. I'd just come down from checking
some camera traps, and I'd I'd had some
time to myself. I usually was rolling around
the reserve with a ranch hand or two.
And, you know, aft after a couple weeks
together, you always tend to kind of go
off and spend some time on your own
after a long day. And so,
yeah, I remember
reflecting
on we get to be as wild as
(26:40):
we want to be and it's hard work,
it's intimidating, but
it's within everyone's capability.
The spectrum of of how wild it is
for some people or or how much work
it would take to do so, you know,
that that's
the variable in that. That's different for everybody.
But, it's in us. It's in everybody. Yeah.
I I I think we we tend to
(27:00):
lose sight in that with all our comforts.
It's easy too. I know I do. But
yeah. Yeah. So getting people out, like, I
wish I could bottle this and bring it
to everybody or make them come out here
and grab their bottle of wild themselves.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've had many moments like
that out there where it's just like, man,
I wish I could just make everyone feel
what I'm feeling right now out here with
(27:21):
this experience.
You're gonna have a blast looking back on
what you're doing right now in the next,
you know, twenty years or so.
Did I really do that? Yeah. You're being
seen and appreciated, and you are part of
the story of
what's to come for Jaguars in a very,
very big way because of the work that
you're doing directly. But what do you think
(27:42):
outside of the work that you're doing needs
to happen,
should happen, or is happening? Maybe there's some
things that you know about,
jaguars and their future.
Maybe,
more of them getting from the Northern Jaguar
Reserve up to Cuenca Los Hojos and and
some New Mexico and Arizona. What what's it
look like out there Yeah. For you in
(28:02):
that regard? I mean, you're you're essentially stating
everything as far as my knowledge goes that
there there are more and more sightings happening,
and there is you know, there's
a surprising amount of entities doing a lot
of a lot of good work. I appreciate
your compliments of me being seen and me
being part of the story.
But really, there's there's I played a a
(28:22):
small role in a very relative small amount
of time compared to people I mean, you
mentioned Turtle earlier. I've never met her in
life, but I've heard about her for years
now. She's a living legend. There's people who
have been doing work out of Tucson on
the border and there's a there's a lot
of these entities that are putting a lot
of effort in and it's starting to be
seen just like you've seen. There's there's sightings
(28:42):
in good places as well. It's all really
exciting. It's all really, really exciting. So I
ask everybody, pretty much everybody, when they have
things that I can imagine listeners going, wow.
I wonder what it'd be like to be
him, to do what he does. And I
love the the people that have the most
interesting jobs in the world, there doesn't seem
to be any formula
whatsoever for them arriving at where they are
today. You know? Like, oh, I went to
(29:04):
school and I did this, and then I
got my it never seems to work out
that way. And I I get the picture.
It didn't work it out exactly that way
for you. But Yeah. But is there any
kind of a formula you can have for,
I'm just gonna go for what I wanna
do, which you did and you're doing Yeah.
Yeah. And and screw everything else. Screw how
hard it is. Screw everything. I have to
do this. This is my thing. What else
(29:26):
would you tell somebody who's thinking about, I
I think this sounds hard, but it sounds
rewarding. What do I do? I think well,
I I think asking yourself, are you willing
to do this for the sake of just
doing it? Are you willing to do it
for no money? Are do you get a
sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from just the
fact that you get to do it? And
but you have to an you have to
answer that very honestly. Because if there's a
(29:47):
slightest amount of hesitation,
then more times than not, in in anything,
you know, I I do I do think
that you'll end up finding a reason why
it can't or won't work out. But if
the answer is yes, I think the path
really works out however it's supposed to work
out for you. Yeah. We gotta make more
of you. We need thousands and thousands more
Austins, Stan, and and and,
(30:08):
everybody out there willing to tell stories in
whatever format and whatever way they choose to
do it because, you know, this is unfortunately,
this is where everybody's getting all their information
now. It's not firsthand
experience for the vast majority of humans anymore.
Yeah. If we're gonna get any of them
out there to become new speakers for the
wild, then,
then you guys are very, very necessary. Oh,
(30:30):
I appreciate that. I, you know, I I
don't think it takes
a a massive amount of,
motivation or inspiration. I think people, more than
anything, just need opportunity and chance. I think
there's a lot of people out there willing
to work hard, just not everyone has gets
a chance or or knows that there is
a chance. I sure as heck didn't know
that's any of this was possible. Yeah. Yeah.
(30:50):
Are there are there any things that you
guys have talked about or are working on
that where you were inspired to, like, wow,
we gotta make this easier for other people
because this was not easy all the time
for us. Like, Fin and First, someday in
the future, you're gonna have, like, maybe some
kind of a program where you take peep
kids on and show them that it's a
little bit easier than what it was for
you? Yeah. You know, that that'd be such
(31:11):
a good idea. There's nothing that we've been
putting in the books or or working on
per se. But by all means, we're more
and more everyone on an individuals, not just
as a team, but at on individual from
Ben to Ryan to Thrash to Sam to
everyone with Nina, the editor, the people who
are just involved with FINRA. Everyone has done
their part in trying to reach out and
help out others doing the same type of
(31:32):
work for the sake of helping. And I
think we'll start there, but I I think
you're on to something. If only you guys
weren't so damn busy. Right? I mean, I
hear Ryan in my head right now. He's
like, well, yeah. He very politely said in
in some part of the interview,
I brought some crazy great idea up. Yeah.
That'd be great if we had the time.
We're super super or, you know, the science
communicators.
(31:52):
Getting a scientist to communicate outside of all
the hard work it takes to do their
job in the first place is something you
can only really let them do choose to
do, you know, because you gotta lay down
sometime. Oh my gosh. And, you know, and
these being around all these these scientists,
they're
some of the most dedicated
people. Like, they need a break. And, like,
(32:13):
when do they have time to tell their
own story? Because they're just busy working. Yeah.
It's always I I I do a good
good bit with or have been doing a
good bit with Cornell,
with their ornephology lab. And and the people
that I'm working with more often than not
are just some of the more most dedicated,
inspiring people. They just and they're lovely. You
know? They they they can speak well. They
(32:33):
just, have a lot on their plate. That's
how I see this podcast in in a
lot of ways. It's just it doesn't take
much to sit down, and then you've got
somebody promoting you and your work and all
of that for a very little for little
input work wise. So And then I how
can we make a big machine out of
this? Because there's so many people to talk
to. There's so many people to
(32:55):
that that have stories to tell. And kudos
to y'all. You know, I went and to
you, I I, you know, admittedly,
I started listening to the podcast when Ryan
came on, and then I started going back
in those archives and listening to others. And
and you guys do a great job with
with not only talking to the people doing
the work, but having a spread of variety.
And I think that's important. I think people
(33:15):
can get lost
in,
the same conversation over and over and over,
right? Which I think we've all heard.
But you guys do an incredible job of
of bringing that variety and and and and
making sure you guys are staying on top
of different
the different things happening now. Thank you. Yeah.
Yeah. It's
but it's just fun. It's just curiosity. Cool.
(33:36):
Thanks for spending all this time today. Yeah.
No worries. Thanks for listening to the Rewilding
Earth podcast.
We do what we do because of you.
This podcast is supported by listeners like you
who long to live in a wilder world.
Please consider donating at rewilding.org
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digest while you're there. To go the extra
(33:56):
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to past episodes, go to rewilding.org/pod.
That's rewilding.org/pod.
It's not just setting up a camera leaving
and coming back and hoping for the best.
It's doing the research on the front end
and then understanding behavior on an individual level.
And that, when you nail the shot exactly
the way you're intending to nail that shot
because you put in the time that could've
taken weeks, could've taken months, could've taken years
to get exactly what you thought it was
(00:24):
that animal was gonna do at the time
you thought it was gonna do it. Yeah.
It is one of the best feelings ever.
(01:01):
You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast.
I'm your host, Jack Humphrey.
Near the end of 2025, I spoke to
Ryan Uhlinger from Fin and Fur Films about
the new release of a documentary called American
Southwest.
The film received a lot of attention, and
the visual storytelling was spectacular.
(01:23):
Today, I have another treat for listeners who
loved that documentary.
Borderlands Jaguar is set to release on January
13 and is a remarkable exploration of the
rugged, untamed heart of the Northern Jaguar Reserve.
Joining me today is Austin Alvarado, a wildlife
cinematographer
who traded his oars as a Rio Grande
river guide for the patient, grueling work of
(01:43):
tracking one of the most elusive predators on
the planet.
Austin doesn't just take photos. He embeds himself
in the landscape, spending weeks in the remote
backcountry to fine tune equipment and wait for
a living shadow to pass through the frame.
What makes this film and our conversation so
compelling is the human transformation
at its center. We dive into the story
(02:04):
of the Northern Jaguar Reserve in Mexico, where
a cultural shift around jaguars is quietly taking
place.
We talk about the men who once hunted
jaguars but have now become their fiercest advocates
and protectors.
It's a masterclass in empathy and community, proving
that the best way to protect a corridor
is to first heal the relationship between the
people and the land.
(02:25):
Austin brings a quiet, heavy authority to his
work,
a perspective sharpened by grit and stillness in
those long, solitary months in the high desert.
I think you'll find his journey as inspiring
as the footage he captures.
To find out where you can see the
film and when it launches, make sure you
go to rewilding.org/podepisode165
(02:46):
for more details. Austin, welcome to the Rewilding
Earth podcast.
Hey. Thanks. I'm excited to be here. I
am super excited. I'm kind of becoming a
fan here of Fin and Fur films and
all the people you run around with. We
just had Ryan Olinger on not too long
ago, and he was teasing the American Southwest.
It hadn't come out yet either. And so
when I told people
(03:07):
we were going to have you on and
and they're like, why? I can't even see
what where what do you mean? It's like
it's a pending film. Borderlands Jaguar. Come on.
You gotta get on board. So I'm learning
more and more about your little gang of
wildlife photographers and editors and,
and the masterful work that you guys do.
First of all, congratulations. Borderlands is beautiful,
(03:28):
exciting,
and even a little tear jerking. So great
job. Oh, man. I really appreciate that. Yeah.
Thanks.
And and, you know, the gang the gang
is just a group of friends trying to
figure it out, so I appreciate the recognition
there. Oh, man. It doesn't look like that
from this end. And I would really love
to go behind the scenes with you guys
sometime and just watch how you do what
you do because I bet you it has
that feeling of just we're out here doing
(03:49):
our thing. But, man, the thing that you
guys do is world class stuff. I said
it to Ryan, like, a 100 times. I
think he got tired of me saying it,
but it's for real. And I'm I'm hearing
it from everybody. It's not just me. So
we should just get into it. I I
was doing some background work here looking at
you, and I have to start with I
don't know where you typically start your story,
getting people caught up to who you are
(04:10):
and and, where you've been to this point.
But I found out you're a river rat,
like a serious river rat. Man, through and
through. Yeah. I I ended up living out
in West Texas in a small town called
Terlingua, Texas, right on the border between Big
Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National
Park. And that was to be a river
guide on the Rio Grande. I fell in
love with the Rio. I was only gonna
(04:32):
be in Tjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjernjern
I met several people from the from the
Fennifer
family out there. And, yeah, I kinda owe
everything
really to the Rio Grande and and Big
(04:54):
Bend. Well, how did photography
get started for you? That's kind of a
crazy thing to do. You must have heard
that's no way to make a living, and
yet you did it anyway. What's up with
that? Lucky for me, at the time, I
was already not making a living. I don't
know if you know this, but river guiding
isn't exactly a, a very fruitful
career path. You were already a pro. Yeah.
(05:15):
Exactly. I was good I was good at
being broke. I was actually an expert at
being broke. And so when my, my curiosity
with photography came up, it was really just
me with with a pretty simple T Rebel
Canon camera just going around figuring it out.
But really, it wasn't until I was asked
to be a part of a film with
Ben called The River and the Wall that
I got an insight into the film world.
(05:36):
And really, the biggest thing I got out
of that trip I shouldn't say the biggest
thing, but one of many important things I
got out of that trip were that the
people filming,
you know, while they're talented
and very experienced,
I trust myself to learn a skill set
and I trust myself to be just as
hard working. And so I I really got
motivated to figure out film after that whole
(05:58):
experience. And, for a while, I was just
piddling around, working for free, volunteering wherever I
could until eventually I got my first paid
gig and did well enough in that that
kept on evolving to some other gigs. And
here we are now. It's been a really
privileged and fortunate fortunate
path to this point. Yeah. Here we are
now like you're an old man, but you're
(06:18):
still just starting out, which is just I'm
envious for that reason, that you've figured it
out. You figured out what you love, and
you figured out how to make it pay
and to be able to stay in it
and everything. And still, really, with the credits
you have under your belt and you're just
getting started, it's it's gotta be it feels
like it should be very, very exciting. Yeah.
(06:38):
I've gone through a lot of life experiences
lately that have really made me reflect on
truly how unique and special it is that
I get to do what I do and
I and I don't take that lightly. I
don't mean to brag about it. I just
I it's more to say how grateful I
am for everything that I do. So I
wanted to talk a little bit more
about the film and, you know, for the
other films that you had done leading up
(06:59):
to this, it feels to me like this
is kind of I mean, you're sharing the
spotlight with just a couple of people here.
Is this one of the first ones or
the first one where you're really kind of
taking the lead more than you had in
previous films? Yeah. No. I've been
fortunate enough to be in front of camera
for a few other projects,
It's always hard to see yourself in front
(07:20):
of a camera
and on a screen. And so it's while
it's not my favorite thing per se, it
definitely makes me reflect and and feel appreciative
of of of being able to to play
that role.
I've done quite a bit of camera trapping
in the past, quite a bit bit of
cinematography in the past where I've taken lead
on different scenes, different projects. And so being
(07:41):
doing the actual work that you see on
camera,
that's not necessarily new to me. In fact,
I would say I'm I'm very comfortable doing
the work itself. I have a whole lot
more experience doing the work than actually being
in front of camera and showing the work.
But yeah. So Northern Jaguar Reserve, was that
a new place to you when you started
all of this, or had you been there
before?
It was a totally new place to me.
(08:02):
We were lucky to have Ryan Allinger, who
was part of the Fennifer team, and he
had spent a lot of time down there
with his wife, Prieta,
in the past. And so he had a
familiar knowledge of the place, and and he
was super, super
motivating in in us wanting to go down
there and check it out. And so we
had some background information from him, but
being there for the first time, it is
(08:23):
it's a reserve, but it's surrounded by these
other ranches. And and once upon a time,
it is a ranch itself. And one one
of my first thoughts when I stepped foot
on it was this must be one of
the wildest ranches
I've ever stepped foot on. You know, you
you go on ranches out here in in
in The US,
and you feel like it's maybe not curated
(08:45):
or manicured necessarily, but it just it there's
a level of of wilderness that's taken away
from the human impact of just managing ranches
here in The US. There
US. They're in the North Northern Jaguar Reserve
and the surrounding ranches. It feels as wild
as if it as if they weren't ranches,
if that makes any sense. Yeah. You went
through a lot of places to get there,
(09:06):
and you've seen an awful lot of cow
burnt landscape, and I know you're
a huge hiker and you've been everywhere in
the,
Southwest, all over Texas, Big Bend, all of
that, so you know what the usual stuff
looks like. And I imagine walking onto this
reserve
had an impact based on just comparison. Oh,
a 100%. A 100%. Like I said, it
(09:27):
it just felt so much more wild than
any other human managed ranch I'd ever been
on. There is a degree of danger might
not be the right word, but a a
degree of I'm vulnerable
here and and not because of another human,
but because this is real wilderness set that
most people, I would say, aren't just ready
(09:48):
to be out out in any given day.
And that excites me. As someone who loves
being in those type of places, it's something
I seek. I seek the wild spaces
that you feel, you know? I feel like
a lot of times nature and the outdoors,
different levels, different degrees of wild, and they're
all beneficial
for some reason to somebody.
(10:09):
But finding those places that really kinda make
make you a little bit more perked up
and alert, that that really excites me. Yeah.
Doug Peacock's famous, I'll paraphrase, but he says
it's not wilderness unless there's something out there
that can eat you. Exactly.
You're down there, you're there, and you have
this monumental
task before you. How much of what's on
(10:29):
the film did you guys set out to
do, and how much was, holy crap, did
we just do that? Our first initial plan
was for Ryan Olinger, Ben Masters, and myself
to head down there as the first initial
convoy
and really get an idea of what we
think is possible and what we think,
is not possible really. That's just as important.
(10:49):
And we got the lay of the land
working with the ranch hand, working with the
researchers and the biologists,
Gail, Lackey, Lackey,
all these amazing human beings who have been
on the reserve for a long time
who, mind you, without their knowledge and without
their expertise, none of what we did would
have been possible. But we went down there
first time and took about two to three
(11:10):
weeks to really kind of get a lay
of the land. We set up a a
few of the research camera traps, just kinda
your typical Browning, Reconyx,
things that you see used for research. And
then we set up some of our more
high end camera traps. We go back to
The US after that, after that two or
three week stint, and we really game plan
on a storyline. Mind you, we've done jaguar,
(11:32):
we've worked on a jaguar film before a
shorter piece out in, in El Cielo, which
is a cloud forest on the border state
of Taino Litas with Texas. And so we
we kind of had a a concept of
what was possible there thinking that maybe the
same sort of storyline could be possible or
a similar storyline could be possible in the
Northern Jaguar Reserve. When we got to the
(11:52):
Northern Jaguar, we immediately realized how different a
situation and how different of a story this
was gonna have to be. Fast forward with
kind of having a concept of what we
want to capture, I started going back, I
think, every six weeks for about two to
three weeks at a time, and to get
there is a journey. I fly from Texas,
(12:12):
Dale, or Tucson and then make the six
to eight hour drive to the closest village
and then about a six to eight hour
drive through mountain roads to get to the
first camp. My camera traps are set up
on the reserve
at various locations. And so each location, give
or take two or three hours of driving
between each location and then hiking up to
that location. And hiking can take anywhere between
(12:34):
a few hours to a a full day.
And
the logistics of of just getting to these
cameras, you know, we're talking a week's worth
of work just to go see them, just
to put hands on them, just put eyes
on them. We
end up not having a lot of success
for the first few months. And
granted, camera trap work is always pretty frustrating
work. It's a lot of problem solving. It's
(12:55):
a lot of fixing errors. Anything that can
go wrong will go wrong. And it's it's
really just staying on top of the maintenance,
the more so staying committed to what we
think is possible. On a day to day,
like I said, we could be driving a
few hours and then hiking
a few hours, and then I could very
well stay put at that same location
(13:15):
for days on end just to make sure
that everything's working right, that I'm that it's
working the way I wanna work, that the
angles are appropriately working at nighttime as well
as during the daytime,
that my lights are coming in at the
right angle that I'm hoping they come in
from, that the focal length is right. You
know, this is
guess and check on a very long scale.
(13:35):
We have an ultimate goal, but really, all
these little fine details
take a lot of time to get just
right. And we operate
under that same sort of procedure for months
on end until we start getting some real
fruitful footage.
And from there is where we got really
creative. In the film, you made it pretty
clear how hard you guys were struggling and
(13:58):
I was gonna ask you, who's who's the
biggest wildlife vandal of trail cameras in your
experience? Who's the one that screws up the
most of your stuff by finding the camera
and playing with it? I have an idea,
but but I wanted to hear what you
think your favorite one is. By far, bears.
Bears are the most curious,
just most aggressive little rascals, and they'll get
(14:19):
into just about anything. We we try to
do a good job
of really setting our cameras in a very
strong way. And, man, I've seen bears
completely knock over what what we would imagine
to be just a a bulletproof setup, and
it's,
yeah, they'll they'll get into just about anything.
Well, I wanted to ask that. It kinda
brings a dramatic,
(14:41):
flare to the whole thing because it's so
hard to do what you do. And then
you describe very eloquently how you need to
just become part of the landscape. You gotta
visit. You gotta stay a long time. You
gotta research. You've gotta you gotta get a
feel for places. Almost, I would imagine,
I think it's gonna be tonight, and I
think she's gonna be there. Or I think
this or you know, I imagine you have
(15:01):
to get to that level. And is that
where the the risky thing the risky part
comes in where you're just like, let's just
go for it. I think I'm just this
is the biggest hunch ever, but I know
she's gonna be there. And that's exactly right.
Just hearing you describe that makes me excited.
Getting into the flow state of starting to
understand pattern, starting to understand behavior of an
of an individual.
(15:22):
With this, it was jaguar. But with any
any animal that we're camera trapping, it's not
just setting up a camera, leaving and coming
back and hoping for the best. It's doing
the research on the front end and then
understanding behavior on an individual level. And that
when you nail the shot exactly the way
you're intending to nail that shot,
because you put in the time that could've
(15:42):
taken weeks, could've taken months, could've taken years
to get exactly what you thought it was
that animal was gonna do at the time
you thought it was gonna do it, yeah,
it is one of the best feelings ever.
Now you guys on the credits didn't do
this alone, and no one ever does. Right?
When I'm talking mainly here about the ranch
hands and the former jaguar hunters, what's it
(16:03):
like working with somebody who used to hunt
jaguars?
Yeah. Yeah. First, I do nothing in wildlife
filmmaking and conservation work that isn't completely dependent
on the work of the people doing the
work on the ground, doing the work every
day. The experts are biologists, the ranch hands,
and this was no exception. Miguel, the ranch
(16:23):
manager, head researcher there, Locolacky, Barayo, the these
ranch hands, these guys who used to hunt
jaguar on the reserve itself, everyone added such
a level of insight that made everything that
we did there possible. With that said, I
don't get a lot of opportunity to see
the actual human development side of conservation
(16:44):
from a cultural shift towards a back half
of of of an an intended project. And
what I mean by that is with a
lot of stuff, you know, there there's a
side a and side b of how you
deal with whatever contribution
issue or management
strategy you may have. And in this instance,
that shift from the people who actually used
(17:06):
to hunt jaguars
on the actual reserve itself to then become
the protectors of the jaguars,
to then be the spokesman
to the other neighboring ranches,
to invite them
on
conservation projects to do that same sort of
protective work for these zaguars.
It makes you realize how conservation work, along
(17:27):
with any work, is a matter of just
having empathy and understanding. And to be around
these guys who who bust their ass and
and work hard to do what they do
and to have no ego about to do
what they do to versus now, I found
it extremely, extremely
inspiring
and gives a real humility to the work
that is conservation because conservation only works
(17:50):
if people buy in. And the most important
people to buy in are those who might
have been part of the problem in the
past. And I don't wanna say part in
fact, that was that was a bad phrase.
I'm part of the problem, but just had
different opposing views previously.
Yeah. They're incredible. And these guys
changed their mindset
of what they think of jaguars.
But by all means, like, they're still ranchers
(18:10):
in Northern Mexico. Every sense, every feeling you
get from them is still true to who
they are. It's it's a vaquero
in in in that Northern
ranching world that
that that lifestyle and that feeling you get
from them is is all the same. They've
just had a change of heart is all.
And I think that's super important because it's
easy to write people off when they
(18:31):
may seem what you're not familiar or agreeable
with. Really, it's just a it's just a
matter of of having empathy. What about surrounding
communities? I've talked to a good number of,
JIWAR activists and biologists and Chris Tompkins and
and Yeah. And about what they're trying to
do is mostly community work, community outreach and
(18:52):
education,
and also
showing the money. Like, your economy is based
on this
Exactly. Which isn't good for the Jaguars,
but we will be there for you and
help you with the economy and the switch.
And it's just amazing how they get that
accomplished
from people who have such set views about
things. Oh, you got it. You're you're you're
(19:13):
getting it right on. You know, it's I
think it goes back to having that empathy,
right? Understanding that this is that there are
certain things that it that affect
a livelihood
and certain realities that we do need to
face. And
the economics behind it is
one of them. Nino is a program that
the Northern Jaguar Reserve is working with alongside
(19:33):
these neighboring ranches where they give prize money
for documentation of various cats, not just jaguars,
all cats. And there's
a different scaling system
on how much
they make per photo or per individual.
And it has had
an immense impact on
people willing, right, just willing to hear what
(19:55):
they have to say
as far as the importance of what they're
doing with the Jaguar Reserve. It seems so
simple, but it's
so profoundly
unique
in a lot of different conservation work where
you're putting your your money where your mouth
is and and reckoning with the economics of
it all, which is huge. Alright. I wanna
hear
what you learned about jaguars
(20:18):
that you
didn't know before this project.
You know, I mentioned earlier that I had
spent some time with jaguars in Tamaulipas in
El Cielo. And the the
level of interaction
a human to jaguar interaction in El Cielo,
in Tamaulipas
compared to that in the Northern Jaguar Reserve,
(20:38):
is night and day. In El Cielo, their
issues are literally in town. They're they have
pets that if they're not guarded well enough,
they're not put away well enough, that they
may be liable to being
preyed on by jaguars.
They have
sightings
constantly by people. They have a closer vicinity,
(21:00):
and that's due to a lot of variables.
But they have incorporated the jaguar as one
of their leading tourist attractions as well. They
really champion the fact that they live with
jaguars there. Compared to
the reserve where we know jaguars are there,
but the sightings are few and far between.
They have such a big
(21:20):
territory, and they have these deep canyons where
they can get lost
that the actual human interaction with the jaguars
is pretty limited. And I was pretty I
shouldn't say surprised, but I was I was
caught off guard by the fact that we
have this amazing reserve doing great work with
a pretty limited amount of human jaguar interaction.
(21:40):
It's the the fact that the reserve
plays a role in, let's call it a
a a corridor or a highway system
between
South Of the Reserve and North Of Reserve,
which encompasses The US as well. How important
that is and the fact that the pieces
around the reserve still feel so wild is
what makes it that much more impactful and
(22:01):
that much more important
compared to El Cielo and Tamaulipas
where
while their interactions are pretty
embedded to their life on a a sheer
volume level, the reality is is they have
to cover a 100 miles
of human population
corridors that would make it nearly impossible to
cross highways and roads and and buildings
(22:23):
that they're really kinda cut off. And when
I say cut off, I mean cut off
from the North, from The US. And understanding
how it's not just about where they're located,
but how they're connected to everything else. Maybe
I didn't learn that, but more I acknowledge
the importance of that being on the reserve.
I think the long running joke is people
who study, like, mountain lions, and they've studied
(22:45):
them professionally and went to school, everything, and
they haven't seen one in the wild yet.
And then all these people on the Internet
just post pictures of mountain lions really get
their goats.
Oh, yeah. I mean oh, it get it
gets me going sometime. I mean, I've seen
I've filled mountain lions. I've I've been around
mountain lions. It is very hard to see
a mountain lion nonetheless. And when people just
(23:05):
casually post up a a cat that just
cross around it, I'm like, oh my gosh.
It takes me months, months of day and
day out work to even get us a
a glance at one. Much less They don't
even they don't know. They don't know. Oh
my gosh. They really don't know. So I've
been telling that little joke for a long,
long time, but I finally got the real
life in in real time reaction
(23:27):
of someone who understands
exactly
how frustrating that is. Oh, man. It really
is. Yeah. It's Yeah. It's always
not offensive, but also pretty frustrating whenever people
are like, oh, why didn't you just post
up over here? This is where I saw
one two days ago. Went well, because I'm
not a psychic.
Yeah. I like it when, in the picture,
(23:48):
you can see their eyes are just undulating,
meaning that the person just turned around and
saved his own life by doing so because
that cat was taking a closer look at
him. Exactly.
Exactly.
Exactly. Yeah. I'm glad that people have those
experiences, and I'm sure that the people who
have those experiences have a much bigger, stronger
appreciation for nature than the day before. I'm
(24:08):
sure. I think it's hard to to come
across a big cat and not feel feel
a sense of of of vulnerability and and
and and a new sense of of of
appreciation and respect. I saw a preteen
mountain lion in person with a rescue.
I can't remember. I think it was in
Arizona or some place, and they were going
around and just had them there for education.
(24:29):
And now there's something about being really, really
close to something that big and wild and
powerful, a predator especially
No, man. I don't know how to, to
this day, even describe it. I've been lucky
enough to have a few different species and
individual cats look right at me, and and
and they know that I know that we're
looking at each other. And Yeah. Oh, yeah.
When they when they observe you, you know
(24:51):
you're yeah. That's whole that's totally different. Yeah.
It's it feels spiritual. It feels
it feels damn scary. It feels exciting. It
feels, you know, that part of me is
like, oh, I think I'm having a real
connection with this cat. Meanwhile, the cat's like,
I wonder if I could take him down
or not. But, yeah, no. There's
there is a a mystery whenever that kinda
(25:13):
locked eye experience happens.
It it it it's happened few or far
between, but it has happened, and it's, man,
it's it's it's something else. I'm sure the
cats don't go back to the little cat
bar and tell all their buddies, man, I
came so close to a human today, you
guys. He smelled like crap. Yeah. I was
gonna eat him, but no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Give me a peck. So all alone, you're
(25:34):
out in a place that it took days
to get to or and you just have
a time to think. Everything's done, and you're
waiting or you gotta sleep, but you can't
sleep, and you're just going through thoughts. Something
really profound that happened that day or that
week, and you wish everybody knew about it.
You wish you could get that feeling across
somehow, an insight that you gained from something
very profound happening out there. Yeah. You know,
(25:57):
I don't I don't think this is unique
to hear, but I'm I I don't have
this feeling too often. Often. But understanding that
we are part of this wild world, and
we get to be as wild as we
intend to be. And it can be super
super intimidating at first. It can be extremely
uncomfortable at first. But we are part of
all this. And when you're and and I
(26:18):
remember I was on on the side of
the river. I'd just come down from checking
some camera traps, and I'd I'd had some
time to myself. I usually was rolling around
the reserve with a ranch hand or two.
And, you know, aft after a couple weeks
together, you always tend to kind of go
off and spend some time on your own
after a long day. And so,
yeah, I remember
reflecting
on we get to be as wild as
(26:40):
we want to be and it's hard work,
it's intimidating, but
it's within everyone's capability.
The spectrum of of how wild it is
for some people or or how much work
it would take to do so, you know,
that that's
the variable in that. That's different for everybody.
But, it's in us. It's in everybody. Yeah.
I I I think we we tend to
(27:00):
lose sight in that with all our comforts.
It's easy too. I know I do. But
yeah. Yeah. So getting people out, like, I
wish I could bottle this and bring it
to everybody or make them come out here
and grab their bottle of wild themselves.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've had many moments like
that out there where it's just like, man,
I wish I could just make everyone feel
what I'm feeling right now out here with
(27:21):
this experience.
You're gonna have a blast looking back on
what you're doing right now in the next,
you know, twenty years or so.
Did I really do that? Yeah. You're being
seen and appreciated, and you are part of
the story of
what's to come for Jaguars in a very,
very big way because of the work that
you're doing directly. But what do you think
(27:42):
outside of the work that you're doing needs
to happen,
should happen, or is happening? Maybe there's some
things that you know about,
jaguars and their future.
Maybe,
more of them getting from the Northern Jaguar
Reserve up to Cuenca Los Hojos and and
some New Mexico and Arizona. What what's it
look like out there Yeah. For you in
(28:02):
that regard? I mean, you're you're essentially stating
everything as far as my knowledge goes that
there there are more and more sightings happening,
and there is you know, there's
a surprising amount of entities doing a lot
of a lot of good work. I appreciate
your compliments of me being seen and me
being part of the story.
But really, there's there's I played a a
(28:22):
small role in a very relative small amount
of time compared to people I mean, you
mentioned Turtle earlier. I've never met her in
life, but I've heard about her for years
now. She's a living legend. There's people who
have been doing work out of Tucson on
the border and there's a there's a lot
of these entities that are putting a lot
of effort in and it's starting to be
seen just like you've seen. There's there's sightings
(28:42):
in good places as well. It's all really
exciting. It's all really, really exciting. So I
ask everybody, pretty much everybody, when they have
things that I can imagine listeners going, wow.
I wonder what it'd be like to be
him, to do what he does. And I
love the the people that have the most
interesting jobs in the world, there doesn't seem
to be any formula
whatsoever for them arriving at where they are
today. You know? Like, oh, I went to
(29:04):
school and I did this, and then I
got my it never seems to work out
that way. And I I get the picture.
It didn't work it out exactly that way
for you. But Yeah. But is there any
kind of a formula you can have for,
I'm just gonna go for what I wanna
do, which you did and you're doing Yeah.
Yeah. And and screw everything else. Screw how
hard it is. Screw everything. I have to
do this. This is my thing. What else
(29:26):
would you tell somebody who's thinking about, I
I think this sounds hard, but it sounds
rewarding. What do I do? I think well,
I I think asking yourself, are you willing
to do this for the sake of just
doing it? Are you willing to do it
for no money? Are do you get a
sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from just the
fact that you get to do it? And
but you have to an you have to
answer that very honestly. Because if there's a
(29:47):
slightest amount of hesitation,
then more times than not, in in anything,
you know, I I do I do think
that you'll end up finding a reason why
it can't or won't work out. But if
the answer is yes, I think the path
really works out however it's supposed to work
out for you. Yeah. We gotta make more
of you. We need thousands and thousands more
Austins, Stan, and and and,
(30:08):
everybody out there willing to tell stories in
whatever format and whatever way they choose to
do it because, you know, this is unfortunately,
this is where everybody's getting all their information
now. It's not firsthand
experience for the vast majority of humans anymore.
Yeah. If we're gonna get any of them
out there to become new speakers for the
wild, then,
then you guys are very, very necessary. Oh,
(30:30):
I appreciate that. I, you know, I I
don't think it takes
a a massive amount of,
motivation or inspiration. I think people, more than
anything, just need opportunity and chance. I think
there's a lot of people out there willing
to work hard, just not everyone has gets
a chance or or knows that there is
a chance. I sure as heck didn't know
that's any of this was possible. Yeah. Yeah.
(30:50):
Are there are there any things that you
guys have talked about or are working on
that where you were inspired to, like, wow,
we gotta make this easier for other people
because this was not easy all the time
for us. Like, Fin and First, someday in
the future, you're gonna have, like, maybe some
kind of a program where you take peep
kids on and show them that it's a
little bit easier than what it was for
you? Yeah. You know, that that'd be such
(31:11):
a good idea. There's nothing that we've been
putting in the books or or working on
per se. But by all means, we're more
and more everyone on an individuals, not just
as a team, but at on individual from
Ben to Ryan to Thrash to Sam to
everyone with Nina, the editor, the people who
are just involved with FINRA. Everyone has done
their part in trying to reach out and
help out others doing the same type of
(31:32):
work for the sake of helping. And I
think we'll start there, but I I think
you're on to something. If only you guys
weren't so damn busy. Right? I mean, I
hear Ryan in my head right now. He's
like, well, yeah. He very politely said in
in some part of the interview,
I brought some crazy great idea up. Yeah.
That'd be great if we had the time.
We're super super or, you know, the science
communicators.
(31:52):
Getting a scientist to communicate outside of all
the hard work it takes to do their
job in the first place is something you
can only really let them do choose to
do, you know, because you gotta lay down
sometime. Oh my gosh. And, you know, and
these being around all these these scientists,
they're
some of the most dedicated
people. Like, they need a break. And, like,
(32:13):
when do they have time to tell their
own story? Because they're just busy working. Yeah.
It's always I I I do a good
good bit with or have been doing a
good bit with Cornell,
with their ornephology lab. And and the people
that I'm working with more often than not
are just some of the more most dedicated,
inspiring people. They just and they're lovely. You
know? They they they can speak well. They
(32:33):
just, have a lot on their plate. That's
how I see this podcast in in a
lot of ways. It's just it doesn't take
much to sit down, and then you've got
somebody promoting you and your work and all
of that for a very little for little
input work wise. So And then I how
can we make a big machine out of
this? Because there's so many people to talk
to. There's so many people to
(32:55):
that that have stories to tell. And kudos
to y'all. You know, I went and to
you, I I, you know, admittedly,
I started listening to the podcast when Ryan
came on, and then I started going back
in those archives and listening to others. And
and you guys do a great job with
with not only talking to the people doing
the work, but having a spread of variety.
And I think that's important. I think people
(33:15):
can get lost
in,
the same conversation over and over and over,
right? Which I think we've all heard.
But you guys do an incredible job of
of bringing that variety and and and and
making sure you guys are staying on top
of different
the different things happening now. Thank you. Yeah.
Yeah. It's
but it's just fun. It's just curiosity. Cool.
(33:36):
Thanks for spending all this time today. Yeah.
No worries. Thanks for listening to the Rewilding
Earth podcast.
We do what we do because of you.
This podcast is supported by listeners like you
who long to live in a wilder world.
Please consider donating at rewilding.org
and subscribe to our weekly news and article
digest while you're there. To go the extra
(33:56):
mile, you can follow and share Rewilding Earth
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to past episodes, go to rewilding.org/pod.
That's rewilding.org/pod.
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