Antonio Eduardo d’Andrada de Almeida was the most successful guide for jaguars in the history of South American hunting. He was born on this day, in 1937 in São Paulo, Brazil.  He studied in England before he began to hunt in the Mato Grosso region of western Brazil in 1959. 

In 1968 he and Richard Mason founded Amazon Safaris, and they were the first to take out clients for the Asiatic water buffalo of Marojo Island, at the mouth of the Amazon River.  In 1969 Tony started guiding clients to the world’s largest jaguars in the swamps of the Mato Grosso, one of the remotest parts of South America’s “green hell.” Tony became the sole owner and guide of the company after Mason retired in 1977.

In 1983 he and Richard Mason reunited to begin another enterprise, Frontier Fishing Safaris. At that time they also began to guide for jaguars in Bolivia. In 1989 Tony founded Pantagonia Safaris with Fred MacDougall, of Buenos Aires, to hunt the southern part of the South American continent (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile).

To learn more about hunting one of the most elusive of all cats, read Tony’s Jaguar Hunting in the Mato Grosso and Bolivia. The book chronicles Tony’s career from its very beginning. It will take you into the remotest parts of the “green hell”—South America’s endless jungles. Jaguar Hunting in the Mato Grosso and Bolivia is one of the finest books ever written on the subject of hunting the South American jaguar.