HOLDERNESS — Jill the juvenile osprey apparently perished in the Brazilian rainforest, while Chip is headed to Africa on a container ship, according to the latest satellite tracking data from researchers at the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center.

“No more signals from Jill's transmitter, so we have to accept the worst,” Iain MacLeod wrote Thursday in his latest Project Osprey Track. “My best guess is that she landed in the jungle canopy to avoid bad weather and was predated. There are all kinds of jungle cats down there, including jaguars, as well as huge forest eagles, so there are plenty of candidates. A sad, but likely all too common end to the first migration of an osprey.”

Jill and Chip are two of three ospreys being tracked from New Hampshire in a special joint research project conducted by the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center and headed by Executive Director MacLeod.

The study is part of a larger New England-wide project spearheaded by Professor Richard (Rob) Bierregaard, a visiting research professor at the Department of Biology of the University of North Carolina. Bierregaard, who has studied ospreys for 40 years, is tracking eight birds on their migration south from Massachusetts, Delaware and New York.

MacLeod said the general reaction at the center to the latest data was “disbelief.”

“It fell apart literally in one day,” said MacLeod.

On Sunday the tracking device for Jill relayed no information, meaning that the solar-powered device secured to her 3 1/2-pound body could have been destroyed.

MacLeod said fewer than half of ospreys survive their maiden journeys, in this case, the 6,000-mile round trip to South America. Jill was making good progress after she departed New Hampshire in September, headed south, and crossed the Caribbean in 24 hours.

She made it to South America and kept going until she reached an area of rainforest just over the Brazilian border.

Chip appears to have lost his way and has likely hitched a ride on a massive container ship, MacLeod said.

“Chip is plunging to new depths of weirdness. We have never seen an osprey do what he is doing — and none of it is good — and his chances of survival are very slim,” MacLeod wrote in Chip's mapping update.

“He is as lost and hopeless as an osprey can be. We have no idea if he could catch a fish out in the deep ocean,” said MacLeod, adding: “He might get lucky, but he's shown a lack of common sense so far.”

The third New Hampshire adult male osprey, Art, arrived safely in South America where he may be preparing to settle down in a national park in Venezuela.

Art has successfully migrated for seven to eight years.

“He'll just kind of twiddle his wingtips until it's time to go back north,” MacLeod said.

MacLeod said researchers are learning much from the tracking study.

“We would never know that ospreys go through these dangerous situations. Chip will be a part of future presentations and will stand out as a very extreme example of what can happen,” he said.

lmulkern@newstote.com