After two hundred or so articles mostly focused on wildlife for the Tico Times, I’ve written about most of the more well-known species that are walking, swimming, and flying around in Costa Rica. Every time I pick a species to write about, I get to go through my video archives and pick out the very best clips to accompany the article. That’s all fine and good, but what happens when I record a particularly awesome video of an animal that I’ve already written about?
I shared some interesting facts about Costa Rica’s pumas back in 2023. To go along with the article, I linked a video of some of my favorite puma clips that I had recorded to that point. Three years and many puma videos later, I have a backlog of puma awesomeness that’s too good not to share. I put a few of my favorites in the video below. Here’s the story that goes with each clip.
Homerun Video
Sometimes I place a camera at a location purely for the stunning background. Often times there is very little reason for wildlife to pass by that exact spot, but if they do, the video will be a homerun purely based on the beauty of the backdrop. I had a camera on homerun location, a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, for over a year. Any species that happened by would make a good video, but in my heart of hearts I was secretly hoping for a puma. A few months ago, my exact wish came true. Not only did a puma walk in front of the camera, but it framed itself perfectly, sat down, and then peered back over its shoulder at the camera.
Missed Connection
I frequently wonder how many times I’ve had a wild cat staring at me while walking to review camera traps and never had any idea that they were there. I bet it happens, but I’ll never know it. The closest I can get to figuring it out is when I review a camera trap and look at the second to last video. The last video is always me, huffing and puffing from hiking, opening the camera, and hitting the off switch. The second to last video is whatever animal was there before I got there. Recently, I was reviewing a camera that is part of my amazing camera trap tour that you definitely should participate in, and the second to last video was a muscular male puma stealthily stalking some probably oblivious animal in the distance. I missed him by a little less than an hour.
Change the Name to Finca Puma
In 2025 I had the good fortune of working, once again, with Fondo de Biodiversidad Sostenible (FBS) an organization that promotes the conservation of forest on private land. As part of that work, I placed several camera traps on a private farm in Guanacaste that I had monitored several years ago. The initial results were awesome, and last year’s results failed to disappoint, especially when it came to pumas. Of the many puma videos I recorded during the project, my three favorites where a stunning male puma video with perfect lighting, the biggest, hulk-like puma I’ve ever seen recorded, and a video of puma rolling around in the grass like a house cat.
I’ll put the clips in the order I just described in the video below. I hope you enjoy them. They’re the type of video that fuels me to keep doing the work I’m doing.
About the Author
Vincent Losasso, founder of Guanacaste Wildlife Monitoring, is a biologist who works with camera traps throughout Costa Rica.
