For 14 nights, Clayton Rosaire did not sleep in his own bed.  Rosaire was not out on a business trip or camping with friends. He wasn’t at a five-star hotel or some tropical resort either. In fact, the place he was sleeping didn’t even have a bed.  Rosaire, who runs Big Cat Habitat, the exotic animal rescue and conservation center with his mother Kay Rosaire, was snuggled in next to a nearly 300-pound beast with a bite force of 1,500 PSI–the strongest of any cat in the animal kingdom. For anybody else, waking up in a jaguar’s den would be the stuff of nightmares. But for Rosaire, who was helping the jaguar Kira give birth to her first litter, it was a dream come true. “She gave birth to the first baby, brought it over to me, put it in my lap and then laid next to me and birthed the second cub,” says Rosaire. “The first time they ever nursed they were in the palm of my hand. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. We brought these incredible lives into the world and then have the privilege of taking care of them and being a part of their family forever.”

Kira gave birth to two cubs, a boy and a girl, the first ever born at Big Cat Habitat. The birth was a milestone for the conservation efforts of the exotic animal rescue, which was founded by Kay in 1987 and is home to over 300 animals that span across 62 different species. Big Cat Habitat worked with several other conservation centers to bring together Kira, their own jaguar, with the father, Bagheera, to create a new jaguar bloodline in the United States. 

For Rosaire, however, the two cubs don’t just represent a new bloodline for the big cat that is native to the Americas. They are the two newest members of his ever-growing animal family. When Rosaire enters their pen, the cubs bound over to him, pouncing on his shoes and rubbing against his legs. Their signature speckled coats turn from gold to white as they wriggle onto their backs and expose their bellies for Rosaire to rub. It’s a level of comfort that only comes from having an incredible amount of trust with the animals. Jaguars, which Rosaire said can be notoriously temperamental, are one of the few animals that have learned to hunt humans in the wild. When Rosaire asked other conservation groups how long they spent with the mother jaguar after birth, they told him that no one goes near the mother for a month prior and after birthing. After Rosaire spent 14 nights with Kira, she didn’t want him to leave.

“There are not too many animals that know that we’re weak prey,” says Rosaire. “It’s amazing to have this bond with them and to be able to work with them the way that we do when they know that we’re the weaker species. They don’t have to do that. To show the relationship that we have with them, to lay there and take naps with them is a really powerful thing because it proves that it works. If you love them and care for them and treat them right, then it actually works–they love us too.”