Chapter one
The return of the jaguar
It took about three seconds for piranhas to devour part of her left foot, biologist Deborah Abregü recalls, as we sit waiting for pizzas to cook on an open fire in Argentina’s El Impenetrable national park. The 30-year-old scientist, who works on a jaguar reintroduction programme for the NGO Rewilding Argentina, was getting out of a kayak last year when the water was at its hottest and the fish were most aggressive. The piranhas swarmed, she said, showing me a photo of the resulting wounds from the rare attack.
