This is a sad sight, a row of jaguar skins, hanging up in a ranch in the southern savannahs. No-one likes to see big cats killed, especially when they're listed as endangered.
This picture may not however be as bad as it looks. The truth is that, in large parts of the Rupununi, jaguars are not endangered. In fact, their numbers are artificially high due to the presence of readily-available prey, namely cattle. With so much livestock around, the big cats have never had it so good, and their numbers have proliferated. On one ranch I went to, the jaguars kill 400 cattle a year, and that's hard to sustain. No-wonder the ranchers go after them with guns.
It would be nice to think that there's a compromise here. Tourists would love to see jaguars, and often leave Guyana disappointed that they haven't done so. Could tourist money be used to compensate the farmers for their losses? And could then farmers be encouraged to allow jaguars numbers to grow, to make the area more attractive? I don't know (and zoologists may tell you it's an unsound way to proceed). But certainly, in countries like Romania, the big predators are a lucrative attraction, and ways have been found to accommodate everybody's needs.