Jeremiah is only a few weeks old when the hunters kill his mother and take him captive. But, small as he is, Jeremiah is a true tayra, native to Belize, a ferocious Devil of the Woods. He would rather die fighting than submit, even to the kindness of his eventual rescuer. And so the forest tree-dweller is given a strange new home, one solitary large tree in a park. There the cub remains until he is fully grown.