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Jaguar with burned paws in Brazil
Photo: Ueslei Marcelino / REUTERS
All that remains of the mighty paws of Jaguar "Ousado" is burned meat.
Normally, the animal leaves impressive footprints in the ground on its forays into the Pantanal in southwestern Brazil.
But now he is tormented by open wounds on the underside, from which the bones protrude - a harrowing sight.
The jaguar is the king of the jungle in South and Central America.
And nowhere else do so many jaguars live as in the Pantanal.
But "Ousado", as the employees of an aid organization called the rescued animal, doesn't look like a king.
His paws are in long bandages.
The big cat lies exhausted in its accommodation.
The image of the jaguar recently went around the world.
"Ousado" burned his paws while trying to escape the flames.
The worst fires on record in Brazil are raging in the Pantanal, one of the largest wetlands on earth.
Usually the region is a paradise for numerous animal and plant species.
Right now it's hell.
Hundreds of bird species live in the region, including the endangered hyacinth macaw.
In the grass and bush, between swamps and lakes you will find as much space as on the entire area of the old federal states in Germany.
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Jaguar "Ousado" is cared for by animal rights activists
Photo: Ueslei Marcelino / REUTERS
The fires destroyed up to 30,000 square kilometers - an area twice the size of the area destroyed by fire in California.
It looks like all that's left is water, observers from an environmental protection organization said a week ago.
In the past few years, the Pantanal, which is mainly located in the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, has been largely protected.
Even if ranches and pastures increased on the edge of the region.
But the annual fire season from July to October, mostly fueled by deliberately set fires, has gotten out of control this year.
A severe drought in the region favors the fires.
During the last rainy season from December 2019 to April this year, there was little rainfall.
The wetlands could therefore only insufficiently fill up with rain.
In addition, there were still some fires from last year, and due to the drought, some of the fires survived the rainy season.
The fire brigade quickly reached its limits.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro declined the issue of forest fires, as he had done with the fires in the Amazon region further north.
Such fires have been seen in Brazil for years, the head of state said.
In fact, there are also natural causes of fire - vegetation can coexist with fire.
Some plant species in the Pantanal need the warmth of fires in order to germinate.
Usually the fires do little damage.
They cannot spread widely between the wetlands.
However, the current situation is exceptional.
Data from the National Space Institute (Inpe), recorded since 1999, registered almost 16,000 fires this year alone - more than ever before.
NASA recorded the damage with the "Landsat 8" satellite.
The false color image above, which was taken with infrared sensors to highlight the fire hubs more clearly, shows blazing fires in bright red.
Charred land is shown in dark red in the image dated August 27, 2020.
The burn scars developed over a long period of time, writes NASA.
The oldest fire was already burning in April, two others were lit in July.
"What is happening this year is extreme and unprecedented in the satellite era," says Douglas Morton, head of the biosphere science department at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Morton estimates the size of the destroyed area to be somewhat smaller than the Inpe.
He assumes 24,000 square kilometers.
That would be "more than ten percent of the Pantanal - and we still have a few weeks until the start of the rainy season."
Dark prospects for the future
The rate of increase in conflagrations compared to previous years is also considerable.
According to satellite observations by NASA and the US weather agency NOAA, as well as the non-profit Instituto Centro de Vida, there were 4,200 hotspots in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso in August 2020.
Compared to 71 in August 2018 and 184 in August 2019.
Experts fear that the Pantanal's unique ecosystem will no longer recover.
And the future looks bleak too, predict researchers.
According to a climate model, the region could experience a temperature increase of up to seven degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Precipitation would also decrease.
Even hotter and drier - this news is a catastrophe for the habitat of the kings of the jungle.
It seems that the only one who will leave long-term footprints in the Pantanal is humans.
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