At Play in the Jungles of the Lord

Part III – Armihuari

By Major L. Boddicker

I love choppers. The sounds of chopper engines and rotors have always meant good things to me. From my first ride into a forest fire in July of 1962 in the Clearwater District of Idaho to the ride I took from San Martin to Armihuari, choppers meant I did not have to walk through some nasty terrain. They go slowly enough that you can see what lies below you.

Armihuari camp sat on a small mountaintop. To accommodate the chopper traffic, a swath of trees 200-yards wide had been cut from southeast to northwest. The helipad was the highest point. On the north, below about 300 feet, was the Smithsonian’s Biodiversity camp. The drilling rig and camp were on the southwest, nicely sitting on a pad of steel plates. The equipment on an exploration rig was impressive. The drilling tower could pull three 50-foot sections of heavy steel drilling pipe. Huge Caterpillar diesel engines powered the motors and pumps. The camp had the facilities to run a small town of 120 men.

The facilities were much more comfortable than at San Martin. The dining hall was offering some American-style food that helped tame the Big D (diarrhea).

Insects at Armihuari were much less pestivorious. Armihuari was about 500 feet higher in elevation and sat in the hardwood forest zone, rather than bamboo. It cooled down nicely at night. The scenery from the helipad was spectacular. From the pad, the view extended to the horizon and was not broken by a single human structure.

Armihuari had been set up and run in 1987 in a premature attempt to find gas. As a result of the bust in petroleum prices, hostile actions by the Mechiguengas, including an attack where the crew locked themselves in a metal building to avoid capture, and the murder of a camp cook in a nearby camp, the effort was shut down. Several roads had been constructed at that time to connect the site with two Indian villages: Camisea and Armihuari on the Camisea River. Building a road in that terrain was a real engineering feat. After 10 years, the old roadbed was obvious in most places, but some stretches of it were totally obliterated by erosion and new tree growth.

To set up my mammal survey routes, I used the old road beds in both directions from the camp. The road made hiking quite comfortable, and it conveniently took me to everywhere I needed to get to find all of the mammals of the area. One branch of the road wound down a ridge and ended at the water pump in a small stream. Another branch dropped off to the north, eventually ending up at Armihuari, a Mechiguenga Indian village about 12 miles away. The third branch dropped off to the southwest and followed a ridge-top down into the Camisea River valley. It had one big problem: It crossed a huge ravine, and at one time there had been a large bridge across it. Most of the bridge had rotted away leaving only two huge logs across the ravine. One of the logs was impassible. The other was scary; the walking surface was about 6 inches wide and was covered with moss and algae. When wet, it was a real tightrope walk to navigate the 60 feet across it. To the bottom of the ravine was about 100 feet, and the landing did not look like a lot of fun. To go in that direction, the log had to be crossed going and returning. The nimble Indians did not find it much of a task, but it scared the hell out of me.

Early on, I discovered that a walking stick was very helpful for me. Negotiating the extreme up, downhill, and side-hill climbs was tough. As I pulled my feet out of the sucking mud and looked for a place to put the next step, belt high on the mountain side, a good stick was a great prop. Going downhill, the stick was essential because downhill really was down hill. Some of the slopes were 60º or more. The old roads really helped cover more ground and gave my old body a rest.

José was on leave, so Federico and I spent two days scouting the country. No bamboo! What a relief! The country was all hardwoods with fairly open understory, so we could see and move around fairly easily. The streams were crystal clear and beautiful, little glimpses of paradise as they tumbled through the rocks and over sandbars. Generally, there was less water around Armihuari.

The third day, Federico and I began setting out traps, snares, and scent posts. The trails looked good, and we found fresh tracks of coneyho (rabbits), anouche (agouti), pacas, and red brocket deer; but the general numbers of large mammals was less than at San Martin. While we were out scouting, I had found fresh tracks of a canine about the size of coyote tracks. Federico called it a pero del mante or dog of the mountains, a short-eared dog. The species is supposed to be very rare, but we found tracks of it at three of the well-sites. I never caught it, but we had it visit two scent stations at Armihuari.

It rained fairly often at Armihuari, which wiped out the scent stations and kept animals from moving. Day after day, we caught nothing and had little to show for the work, and we had to remodel scent stations that got rained out the following night. Things were not great for the first six days.

We managed to put together a fair list of large mammals from sign sightings of monkeys, but there was little excitement. The bat guys were having a great time catching hundreds of the beasties, from over 30 species.

The herp guys found a 6-foot bushmaster at night, 50 yards from the thunderbox (toilet), which caused quite a sensation. The flashlights were suddenly on for every trip to the bano. Two days later, an 18-inch baby bushmaster was found on a trail about 100 yards from camp.

About day six, Federico and I tried calling for several hours, using various sounds from the Crit'R·Call and what he used, including lip squeaks and nasal bawls he made with his voice.

I called an ocelot up to 8 feet behind me. It came in silently, and I never saw it. Federico watched it come in for about 10 yards and yelled at it when it looked like it was about to jump on me. I heard it bound off. An ocelot went through one of our snares a short distance away several days later.

There was nothing else in the traps or snares for days.

On day six, I found a toilet of a big cat which Federico thought was a puma (mountain lion). The scat was full of peccary hair.

The work was frustrating, so we kept scouting out into new country to see if we could break into something.

On day eight, Federico and I started extending the trails again. The old Armihuari Road had been overgrown by some 100+ yard patches of some sort of vine that flat stopped progress. I insisted we cut through it, and with both of us whacking away at it, we punched through it only to find another patch 100 yards further. At the end of the day (day 8) we were beat and frustrated. It was getting dark and time to head back to camp. Federico was tired of being with me because he had to work a lot harder than the other Indians. I bribed him with Snickers candy bars, but that wasn’t enough.

I stood in the descending nightfall gloom, soaked with sweat, itching from ant bites and generally feeling lousy from diarrhea when the breeze switched from the southwest to the northeast. A rich pungent smell was in the breeze. I lifted my head and turned into the breeze, sucking in the scent. Big cat! “Amigo,” I shouted, “El tigre!” I pointed to the northeast. Federico turned and sniffed the breeze. “El tigre!” he exclaimed.

We started chopping jungle and within 30 yards broke out in to a clearing; a gravel pit opened up where the old road had been built 10 years ago.

Jaguar tracks, scats, scratching posts, and loafing beds covered the three-acre opening. Bingo! We hurriedly looked over the meadow, exclaiming at each new pile of scats and discovery of bones of our good fortune. Then it was time to get back on the trail and trot on back. We broke into the clearing of the Smithsonian camp as darkness slammed down.

Federico was a great storyteller, and at every dinner he would tell the Indian roughnecks about the day’s events. He was having a great time that evening. It took awhile to get to sleep, thinking about what we would do the next day.

Jaguars are the kings of the Amazon Jungle, hands down. They are about 15% larger than cougars, about the same size as African leopards, but are less aggressive than are leopards. I was assured that they never ate white men, but occasionally ate Indians. From the size of the tracks and diameter of the scats, they were capable of killing any man.

The superintendent of the drilling operation was a Scotsman, Willie, a tall, sharp guy with a strong interest in what we were doing. He and I became good friends and discussed at length many subjects of politics, geography, and jungle biology, over the evening dinners. He was fascinated at my new discovery and wanted to see what we had found. I agreed to take him when I had scouted it better and knew what to expect.

Day nine started early. Federico and I hurried to check equipment and scent stations. The drilling rig was having severe problems because the earth was moving and wedging the drill bits. One bit had been hopelessly stuck, so they tried to blast it loose. No luck. They abandoned that hole, filled the hole up with cement, leaving a $25,000 bit and sensing equipment, and started a new hole. Now the new bit was stuck. While they had been jamming the bit, trying to extricate it, a huge pin has come loose and the entire 12-ton block and hook that raises the pipes had come crashing down. I just happened to be looking at it when it cut loose. I ran like hell toward the rig to see if I could help because it looked bad for whomever was working the platform, and I had gotten to know most of the roughnecks by this time. No one was allowed close to the platform, and fortunately in the fall of the block there was a 6-second hesitation in the fall after the pin popped, which allowed everyone to get to safety.

The next week was a zoo of inspectors and extra people at the site and on the trails. Large mammal activity had shut down to nothing. After lunch, Federico and I headed out to the jaguar meadow. The day was clear and cool. The sweet smell of dying leaves filled the air until we reached the meadow. Then, the strong smell of cat took over.

Federico and I slowly covered the meadow, mapping the activity we saw, photographing tracks, scratches, beds, and scat. We picked up the scats and bagged them for further analysis because they were full of hair and bones of mammals of which we had not seen or found sign. Federico found a skull of a kinkajou, a relative of a raccoon, which lives in the jungle canopy. One huge scat pile contained the remains of a Hoffman 2-toed sloth; another had red brocket deer fawn toes and peccary hair. It took two hours to cover the meadow and bag all of the specimens.

Three species of cats were using the meadow: ocelot, puma, and jaguar. At least three jaguar were using it, an adult female and kitten (half grown), and a medium-sized male.

The jaguar had a toilet at one end, the cougar at the other end of the meadow. The jaguar tracks entered on the south end of the meadow and exited on the north. The east side of the meadow was the edge of a steep drop-off. Jaguar beds lined the edge where they rested and watched downward for prey to wander into range.

At the intersection of the entrance trail and the meadow edge, Federico raked a 1.5-meter circle in the dirt slightly off to the side of the trail. In this circle, I put a Q-tip full of Carman’s Bobcat Gland Lure.

Twenty yards away near the ledge, he made another circle in which I put Carman’s Canine Call Lure. Twenty yards further north we put Pro’s Choice, then Magna Glan. At the last circle near the exit trail, I put out Carman’s Beaver Lure.

From the tracks and scats, it looked like the jaguars were cycling through the meadow every 4^th night and would be coming through in two nights or the 12^th day. Federico agreed with my timeline and was surprised that I could read sign that well.

We took a few pictures then headed back to camp for a couple of hours in the lab looking through the scats and bones from the samples we picked up. The jaguars and puma did a nice job of finding and eating things which we had a hard time finding.

Most of the scats had been out in the weather for a time and were washed, or insects had eaten all of the stinky stuff, leaving hair and bones. I did not have a hair and bone identification key, but between the parasitologist, Federico, and I, we could come close to positive identifications.

The predominate food for the jaguar was collared peccary or javelina. The pumas liked red brocket deer. One jaguar scat had most of the skeleton and hair of a Hoffman’s two-toed sloth. How could we tell the difference between the big cats from the scats? Hair. Puma and jaguar groom or lick themselves and swallow their hair during grooming. The two species separated their toilet areas as well.

At dinner that evening, I was discussing the day’s events with the superintendent. He was keenly interested in the jaguar saga. I asked him if he wanted to go out after dinner and try calling the jaguar in with a Crit’R·Call and spotlight. “Sure.”

We each found 60,000 candle power flashlights, put an 18-inch machete on our belts, and headed down the old Armihuari Road trail about 7:30 p.m., carefully lighting the trail to keep from stepping on snakes. About 500 yards from camp, we broke into an open meadow about 3-acres in size and climbed up an old dirt pile left over from the 1987 road building.

I blew a series of high-pitched, squally piglet squeals like a javalena pig, on the Crit’R·Call. The jungle went quiet for a few minutes. I repeated the calling for about 10 minutes. We continuously shined the lights to try to pick up eyes at the edge of the jungle, but we saw nothing.

We moved on another 500 yards and repeated the calls. This place was a large road-fill between two hills that looked down into a steep sided “holler” as it would be called in Arkansas. After ten minutes of calling, nothing showed up.

Another 500 yards down the trail we stopped at a flat hilltop. At both of the previous places we had 100+ feet of fairly good visibility. At this spot we were encapsulated with brush.

We whispered back and forth about how poor the visibility was. Then I decided to give calling one last try, and the javelina squeal peeled out through the jungle. I made about three squalls when Willie turned to me, his eyes wide open and with a concerned look on his face.

“I heard something, what does a jaguar sound like,” he whispered.

“They make a deep growling cough like a woof-a-woof-a-woof-a-woof,” I said quietly.

“Darn, that is exactly what I heard over there,” he pointed to the northwest.

“How far out?” I asked. “I didn’t hear it.” My ears aren’t the best any more.

“Maybe 250 meters” he said.

“Now we have an interesting decision to make,” I teased him. “There are no trees here into which we can climb, neither of us has a gun, and it wouldn’t do any good if we did because it is too dark and thick to see the jaguar before it strikes us anyway.”

Both of us pulled our machetes and turned on our lights.

“I wonder what the best way is to hold a machete against a jaguar charge,” I asked.

It is held with both hands extended as far forward as you can and try to let the jaguar jump on it as it springs to attack. Right! It is sort of like playing dead for bears. When do you decide that playing dead isn’t working? When your leg is about eaten.

“Well, it is decision time, I can call it closer, or we can get the hell out of here,” I reasoned.

“Let’s go, I’ve had enough for the evening I believe,” Willie exclaimed, and we quickly hiked back to camp.

“How do you know what it is going to do when it comes to a call?” Willie asked.

“I don’t know, never called a jaguar,” I answered.

“You mean you didn’t know what would happen if a jaguar really showed up,” he asked again.

“Yes, I didn’t know, that’s why we did it, to find out,” I said.

“You are nuts!” he exclaimed.

“Well, we know they grunt and vocalize as they come in to a call. They probably think another jaguar is eating their pigs, and the resident jaguar is warning it to get lost,” I said. “I didn’t know that before. You see, that is science and why we are here learning,” I added, tongue in cheek.

“You are nuts, what if it just showed up silently and jumped us?” he asked.

“Well, we would know that and if we survived it, would report it to the Smithsonian as part of our animal behavior report,” I answered.

“You are pulling my leg, you crazy Yank,” he laughed.

Well, yes I was, but no I wasn’t. When you tune up the old Crit’R·Call in the woods, one never knows what is going to happen.

The camp lights really looked good. The drilling rig was lighted up like a gigantic Christmas tree and the Caterpillar diesel engines were throbbing away. I took a hot shower and hit the bunk.

The next day, Federico and I hurried to check the scent posts and traps. Too much other-people-activity day and night on the trails, so we drew a blank except for one set of short-eared dog tracks, ocelot tracks, and Brazilian cottontail tracks. One of the ornithologists picked up a tayra skull. Tayra is a jungle marten, a member of the weasel family that spends most of its time hunting in the canopy. Like marten, it comes down on the ground and deposits its scats at trail intersections on rocks.

This particular skull was interesting in that it had holes in it from canine teeth that were the same size and shape as its own. It was probably killed in a territorial battle by another tayra.

Federico and I carefully worked down the trail toward the jaguar meadow over the trail Willie and I used the previous night. Nothing. When we got to the first meadow, we spread out and looked the meadow over for jaguar and deer beds and other sign. We found a jaguar bed at the edge of the ten-foot cut where the road left the meadow. It was a perfect ambush point for the big cats to jump on prey entering or leaving the meadow. There were several other jaguar beds on high points in the meadow.

I spotted a scat on a termite mound where a big game trail came up to meet the old road. It was a tayra scat.

We slowly approached the meadow and looked into it, hoping to catch something on the scent stations. Nothing.

On the first three scent stations, an ocelot had tracked and rolled. Ocelots are on the Convention in Trade of Endangered Species, Category II. They are abundant where we were, but Peru’s government made trapping them illegal, to knuckle under to the anti-fur people bunny huggers. The Indians have very few things they can trade for goods. Margay and ocelot were popular in the fur trade until CITES. The Indians were hurt by it. Both margay and ocelot cats are more abundant there than bobcats are here. We estimated ocelots at 5 per square mile in the four areas that we observed them. Federico was impressed and studied the tracks carefully, and then we quickly left.

I had to re-lure the bobcat gland lure scent station because the ocelot or a rodent had stolen it. When I did, I had a few drops of BGL drip on my rubber knee boots.

A lot of the afternoon remained so Federico and I extended the scent post and trapline over the old bridge and down the old road toward Camisea. The balancing act on the old rotting log was always scary, but that was the only way to get there. We put up six #2 Gregerson snares for the short-eared dogs and four #4 Gregerson snares for agouti. The old road was very poor, taken over almost completely by the jungle.

“Ocho kilometers, Camisea, Mechiguenga,” Federico remarked and pointed down toward the river. He wanted to hike to the village on Sunday.

The herpetologists found an 8-foot bushmaster, 3 feet from the Armihuari trail and 50 feet from the thunderbox that night about 11 p.m., which caused a stir around camp.

If our predictions were right, the jaguar would be back on the meadow that night.

Between Federico and Willie telling tales of jaguar adventures, I had become somewhat of a celebrity around camp.

The bat people were having phenomenal results with their nets, sometimes catching 50 or more in an evening, of 15-20 species. About dark, a small hawk, which looked a lot like a prairie falcon, would sit high on a bare limb and watch the drilling platform. As the large fruit bats would come into some sort of fruiting tree next to the platform, this hawk would pick one out and nail it, then fly back to its perch and eat it. It was a nightly ritual that was fun to watch. The hawk is a specialized feeder, eating exclusively bats.

The herpetologists had it slow during the dry season so were catching frogs, toads, lizards, and a few snakes, but were disappointed at their success. The bird folks were finished and had left for home. The small mammal people were doing very little, catching a few mice, repeatedly. The area seemed to be pretty sterile.

The oil rig crises was winding down, and human traffic on the trails was lighter so we started picking up larger mammal traffic: crab eating raccoons, short-eared dogs, ocelot, coati, tapir, collared peccary, red brocket deer, and nine-banded armadillo began showing up frequently. A troupe of black spider monkeys showed up on the Armihuari trail and was seen for several days.

Federico and I hit the trail 15 minutes early the next day, wanting to get the traps and snares run quickly, hoping we had action on the jaguar meadow. The short-eared dog was back and just missed a snare. An ocelot had gone through another snare because the loop was too big. Several agoutis ran across the trail in front of us. Federico found a paca den hole. While we were on the west side of the bridge log, it rained briefly, wetting down the jungle and making the trails slimier and us soaked. Federico, who normally went over the log like a monkey, looked at its wet and slimy algae-covered surface and looked worried.

“Mucho peligro,” he said matter of factly, looking down into the chasm. Yea, right, so now what. He gulped and started across it, working slowly carefully planting each boot before shifting his weight. He got about 10 feet from the end and ran to the bank. Now it was my turn. I was really weakened by the constant diarrhea which also made me unsteady and quite frankly, I’m not big on climbing on logs over canyons anyway, so I was damned scared!

I checked the bottom of my boots and cleaned off some grass and leaves, then started inching across that damned log. Once you launched, you just stuck with it, step by step, trying to focus to put your feet in places where they would not slip. My walking stick helped steady me. I looked down, and that gave me incentive to stay on the log. If I went off, it was a straight drop for 60 feet, and then impalement on a ten-year old deadfall dumped there when the road was made. It sure felt good to step onto the bank.

Federico just shook his head and smiled. “Peligro, palo grande es caca.” Basically, he said: it is dangerous, that big _ _ _ _ log.

“Si, amigo,” was all I could say.

We ate lunch, took a siesta, and then started down the Armihuari trail to see if the jaguar had visited us.

About 50 yards from camp, we found the first jaguar track, a huge pug mark in the mud. It had set down and watched the camp. We worked on down the trail and found where it had laid in ambush at the exit of the first meadow for a few hours.

Federico was uncomfortable, and both of us were looking ahead and at every high point from which a jaguar could jump at us.

Where the trail broke out of a heavy growth of vegetation in a wet muddy low spot, we smelled the big cat, smelled again, and then we saw the big pug mark again. The jaguar had dumped a three-pound pile of its feces right on top of my boot print from the day before. The stinking pile of peccary remains was reeking and had a happy collection of flies, wasps, and carrion beetles working on it. The feces were maybe four hours old. Federico looked at me with a real strange look like: what is this guy, some sort of jaguar reincarnation? I just raised my left arm high with a thumbs-up and said: “All right!” I pulled out a heavy plastic sample bag and put the feces in the bag, labeled it, and put it in my backpack.

Fifty yards down the trail, about 10 feet from where we found the tayra scat, the big cat struck again. Again, right into my footprint, the jaguar had vomited a pile of yellow/green-looking stuff filled with chewed grass. That was all Federico could take. He got very excited and started jabbering away in Yaminihua language. He quickly looked into the jungle, then went off and cut two 7-foot poles and sharpened the ends.

He then said something to the effect that this jaguar is watching us, is big, is very dangerous, and that I have really ticked it off. Was I trying to get us killed? I shrugged my shoulders like what is all the fuss about.

He showed me how, if the jaguar attacks us, you jam the pole in the ground, point the pole at the jaguar so it hits the end of the pole, then you push it toward the ground. Then keep the pole between you and the jaguar. You don’t kill the jaguar with it; you just keep it away from you. If the chance comes, you also hit the jaguar with the pole to drive it away. Yeah, right!

So, carefully we walked into the jaguar meadow about 250 yards away. The jaguar story was easy to read. Fresh, huge pug marks walked on our tracks into the meadow. The cat walked over to the scent post with Bobcat Gland Lure and crapped on it, real fresh crap. Then it walked over to the Canine Call Lure, smelled it, rubbed, and then rolled on it. Then he went over to Pro’s Choice where it scratched and laid on it. Then on to Magna Glan lure where it got excited and rubbed, rolled, scratched, and then peed. When it hit the beaver castor, it went berserk and tore up the place, throwing big clumps of grass helter skelter, making huge gouges in the dirt and demolishing the area.

Federico’s eyes were like saucers. “El tigre!” he exclaimed and pointed into the jungle.

“Is it here? Este el tigre?” I asked.

“Si, si,” and he pointed at the bush about 25 yards away.

I didn’t see the big cat or hear it. Federico walked in sort of a half crouch with his long poll held at the ready between me and the edge of the jungle.

My camera clicked and I tried to get everything on film. We then walked over to where Federico had thought he saw the jaguar. Possible. Then we started back to camp.

Federico did a great job of telling the story to the troops. Boddicker, the large gringo who talks to jaguars was my I.D. from then on.

The next few days were slow; my shift was coming to an end, so we wound down the trapping effort. It rained and washed out our scent posts, so we shut that down.

Federico and I jumped into the jungle and started hiking long distances away from the camp. We found sign of a lot of new mammals and large turkey-type birds. It was the most fun for me to get into new places to see the hidden clear pools, waterfalls, brilliant flowers, hunt down the bird songs, and to explore.

On the fourth night, we were going to try to get photographs of the jaguar. José was back. He, Willie, Federico, Gerardo, and Juan José Rodriguez and I hiked to the jaguar meadow and chose a place to build a viewing platform.

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