Heart of the Jaguar
"In a journalistic tour de force, James Campbell goes on the trail of the jaguar and introduces us to the remarkable animal biologists trying to save these big cats from extinction. Through Campbell’s eye and spellbinding prose we experience the elusive big cat’s stunning habitat, its beauty, might, and intelligence, and its mesmerizing aura. And most crucially, Campbell convinces that the difficult task of saving the jaguar is a must. Heart of the Jaguar is a worthy adventure not to be missed."
— Dean King, author of Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship That Saved Yosemite and Sufferings in Africa
"Both inspiring and gripping, James Campbell’s Heart of the Jaguar artfully weaves together the life of famed jaguar researcher Alan Rabinowitz, a passionate, complex man, with the story of the jaguar itself―mysterious, beautiful, majestic, and, of course, threatened. To hike into jaguar habitat in various countries and on different continents with Campbell is to experience not just adventure, sorrow, and hope, but something so many of us crave and miss these days: the thrill of raw wildness."
― David Gessner, author of All the Wild That Remains and Return of the Osprey
Books by James Campbell
Books by James Campbell
About James
James Campbell is an award-winning author of five nonfiction books and numerous magazine articles Outside magazine, National Geographic Adventure, Men’s Journal, among others.
As an adventure writer, James Campbell traveled to the isolated and wild Arctic Circle for The Final Frontiersman, where he chronicled the life of his cousin Heimo Korth, one of the last men living a subsistence existence in the Alaskan bush. For The Ghost Mountain Boys, Campbell walked across New Guinea’s Papuan Peninsula, retracing the grueling World War II route of the 32nd Division’s “Ghost Mountain Boys.” A decade later, he returned with his teenage daughter, a small group of adventurers, and Native Papuans to trek the same path. For Braving It, he lived in the Arctic with Alaska’s last hunter-trapper-gatherers, then backpacked with his daughter across the Brooks Range before canoeing to the Arctic Ocean. In researching The Color of War, he documented the overlooked stories of Black sailors who survived the Port Chicago explosion and were later accused of mutiny—men who were posthumously exonerated in 2024. And for Heart of the Jaguar, he traveled across Central and South America, following the path of legendary conservationist Alan Rabinowitz and exploring modern efforts to preserve jaguars and their vanishing habitat.