contented jaguar, originally uploaded by Wordyeti.

This guy’s name is Rafa. He’s smiling in his sleep at the Rescue Shelter Las Pumas, where he’s safe from the hunters and the men who captured him from his mother because he had a thorn in his paw and couldn’t run fast enough to escape. Like so many of the other big cats, his life is a tale of tragedy.

I wish he could be set free to roam and hunt for himself, but since he’s been around humans since he was a kit, he can’t survive out on his own. Still, I’d like to see him in a bigger enclosure, where he can run around and play and bite stuff without having busloads of little obnoxious kids taunting him through the bars of his cage.