Ambue Ari Animals - Part One

Back in San Francisco now and it’s time to catch up on the last month of blogging before all the memories of my trip slip away. Well, I’ll start back at the park, where I got to know some amazing animals. I spent most of my time in quarantine, but also hung out with some of the house animals, who I’ll begin with.
The first animal I met when I arrived was Herbie the tapir. He was a huge love, but hated being locked up. His enclosure was fairly large but completely barren because he had long ago stripped it of plants and they weren’t replaced, aside from the patuju leaves he was given to eat at each meal. His life centered around mealtimes and planning his escapes. In our first week there, he escaped three or four times. Each time, he was found happily roaming around and herded back home by a large group of people using bribery in the form of bananas. He loved getting visitors and would lick us constantly with his huge tapir tongue, but was visibly miserable most of the time. One of his escapes entailed using his immense weight to push over the fence and jump into the lake on the other side. He happily swam around, completely oblivious to the petrified cat on a leash whose territory he had entered. I only heard about this later, but it was apparently quite the entertaining but frightening scene – the cat fled from the person walking her, and the goofy tapir joyfully frolicked in the water. Puma and tapir were both caught and returned to their enclosures and a resolution was made to repair Herbie’s house.
But he escaped again the next morning and was escorted down to the large enclosure we had in quarantine. Poor guy did not want to enter but was lured in with his beloved bananas and the door was padlocked shut, leaving a despondent tapir inside. Herbie’s care was passed on to us in quarantine because of the nature of the area. But it still did not make sense to have him in an area reserved for the new and sick animals (though many of our animals didn’t even fall into this category) so it was just a whole contradictory mess. This enclosure was smaller than his original area, which was slowly being repaired, but he was at least kept occupied by eating all the plants. It had been an aviary was so adorned with lush vegetation. We watched each day as plants were devoured and trees knocked down and the jungle turned into a desert. Herbie seemed much content in this enclosure, as shown by his actually lying down to rest in his bed rather than constantly pacing. Yet he still wanted to get out, frequently jumping up on the fencing and extending his trunk up high, making a huge clatter as he banged around. In cages on the other side of the fence were most of our quarantine animals, including two small monkeys who were especially frightened of the new arrival.
It was not a good situation and we were relieved when a week later Herbie was finally escorted back to his original enclosure. I didn’t see him there, but I’m sure he was not happy to be back. We had quite a few discussions with the higher ups about ways to better things for Herbie, including taking him on walks, widening his enclosure to include a lake, or best of all, letting him free, but all we got in response were excuses – he was too stubborn to walk on a leash, he would disturb the cats if he was out, the lake belonged to the cat, etc. Although fairly domesticated, Herbie was still plenty capable of finding food and surviving on his own. He was such a sweet animal and I loved spending time with him, but it was so sad to see his stress and misery rather than the carefree attitude he showed during his rare moments of joy.
When Herbie was moved to the large aviary in quarantine, Chichi Richi the macaw was living there, and despite our protests, they were locked up together for the night. Chichi Richi was obviously aghast and spent the night squawking in fear and hiding at the top of her enclosure. Herbie was a gentle giant, but all that she knew was there was a giant in her house and that wasn’t okay. In the morning we moved the poor bird into a small cage in old quarantine where she had to stay for several days. We had been working already on repairing one of the aviaries in main camp so that we could move her there, but we still had a lot of work to do. After hours of patching up holes and weak areas on the ceilings and walls and securing the fencing to the ground, we cleared out the enclosure with the help of the house animal crew and they prepared it for their new addition. As I was working on the fence, one of the (nameless) macaws on the other side followed me closely to the point where I had to be careful not to grab his feathers with my fliers. He always wore a very curious expression, and bent his head down for me to scratch him through the fence. When I went in to visit him, he immediately climbed up on my arm and wouldn’t let me leave, jumping back up the moment I would attempt to put him down.
It was really rewarding watching Chichi’s joyous reaction when we released her into her new home after being traumatized by a tapir and then locked in a strange small enclosure. She had lived with some of the other macaws previously but with her dominance and aggression, stressed them out to the point of feather picking and not eating, so was moved to quarantine. Her new aviary bordered that of the other macaws and surprise, surprise, there were constant threats exchanged across the fence and the two males on the other side began fighting with each other, feather picking, and not eating. Tessa worked in house animals and after a lot of pushing, was given the resources to put a tarp up between the aviaries to reduce some of the macaws’ stress.
Chichi Richi didn’t used to be so aggressive and bad with other birds and people, apparently. She had been paired with Lorenzo, another blue and gold macaw, but Lorenzo fell in love with Sarah, one of the volunteers who runs the park. Lorenzo was allowed to roam freely, and Chichi Richi was locked up on her own, where she developed a resentment towards other brown-haired females and lost her ability to get along with other birds. Lorenzo was a very attractive and talkative macaw who spent his time around main camp following Sarah around but biting anybody else who came up to him. He was pretty funny to watch as he hung upside down from a clothesline but then decided it was more fun to chew on the socks hanging next to him.
He also kept us entertained with his constant chattering, repeatedly shouting hola into the kitchen during mealtimes or when someone walked by him. Tessa fed him daily and he started to follow her around a bit, but the rest of us had to keep our distance from him because he certainly wasn’t the friendliest. Though there was one odd afternoon where he climbed onto my arm and acted friendly for a moment, but then gave me the evil eye and I got Tessa to quickly move him away from me; macaw bites are no fun.
People frequently took out one of the house animals to sit on the bench with them. Gordo, a green parrot, couldn’t fly but loved to hang out with people. He was quite the chatterbox as well with the constant ‘Gordo’, ‘hola’, and a lengthy jumbled phrase that I could never make out the words out. He would lift his wings on command to show off his gorgeous features, and was usually quite friendly. I did get a nice bite on my thumb, though, when I reached out my arm for him to step up but he wanted to sit on someone else’s shoulder instead.
Another sad case in house animals was Rudolpho the deer. I went in to visit him on my first day and he gave me a full bath, loving the salt on my skin. He seemed very happy and friendly that day, but I later learned otherwise. He had previously lived with Bambi, another deer who had been Herbie’s best friend, but had mauled her to death with his horns. Since then, he had been on his own and not given much attention or care because people no longer liked him. His enclosure shared a fence with Herbie’s and there were gaps in the fence, so he sometimes moved back and forth, at least getting some company from Herbie. I only heard stories of this from Tessa, but apparently he got pretty beat up by the fence one day and was covered in lacerations. We talked to the vets about it, but nothing was done and the poor guy took a long time to heal, partly because he wasn’t receiving adequate nutrition and clearly needed a salt lick.
In house animals were also a hoard of flying green parrots, three toucans, an aviary with several calm birds who couldn’t fly, four chanchos (wild pigs/peccaries) who ate our kitchen scraps, and two adorable pios (ostrich-like animals) named Matt and Damon. One night I put the pios to bed, which entailed herding the unwilling creatures into their shed – I got up behind one of them and used all my weight to push him in the right direction as he looked back and hissed at me like a goose. They were put in their house to keep warm and be safe from predators, though I never understood why they couldn’t just go into their shed when they wanted to, or why they were even there in the first place.
Aside from my quarantine creatures, the other animal I interacted with was Lazy Cat the ocelot. Since we didn’t work with cats, we were given a half day walk along with a cat. Lazy Cat definitely lived up to her name and didn’t want to leave her enclosure. Her walker attached herself to Lazy using a system of ropes and carabineers and tried to let Lazy lead the way, but that was hard when all she wanted to do was eat frogs or nap in the sun. At one point, she ran a bit along her trail, but mostly just lazed along and stretched out like a big house cat. She also had the attitude of a house cat – she was very domesticated but moody and only did what she wanted to do. She crawled into my lap at one point wanting to be stroked, but quickly got mouthy and I had to stand up. She enjoyed chewing on arm hair, so I allowed her to trim mine for a bit until she got overly playful and started batting at my arms. The cats get fed once a day so after her afternoon walk, we wrapped chunks of meat in patuju leaves and hid them throughout her enclosure. We then stepped outside and watched her bounce around and find her treasures, climbing up posts and along platforms to reach her precious meal. It was a very cool experience to walk with her, but also felt a lot like I was just with a gorgeous large house cat on a leash. More on my take of the walking and keeping of wild cats later.
That’s all for now – next up, quarantine animals.

Construction

When we weren’t working directly on the animals’ areas, we did quite a bit of construction. The animals used to be in old quarantine, which had even tinier rotting wooden cages and room for very few creatures. We used it at times for one reason or another, such as when the tapir escaped and was temporarily housed in the large aviary that had held one macaw who understandably didn’t want to share her house with this huge creature (story later). New quarantine had been initiated a few months before with larger, sturdier metal enclosures that were easier to clean and could be enlarged. The pigs and tortoises had larger dirt areas in which to roam, and we had three birds and two monkeys in an adjacent enclosed area, each in their own (far too small) cage. Our first project when I arrived was to repair one of the aviaries at main camp so that we could move Chichi Richi (our macaw displaced by the tapir) there – she was only in quarantine because they had nowhere else for her to go. Yeah, the whole idea behind quarantine there is pretty contradictory! I was initially very unsure in my use of wire cutters, pliers, and construction with fencing material in general, but I soon was adept in patching up the holes around the old aviary. My hands certainly didn’t appreciate my gripping the tools as I cut out patches and twisted wires in ways that they didn’t want to move., and it was hard to work for long periods reaching upwards, sometimes standing at the top of a shaky ladder. It seemed like we would never finish, as we found hole after hole on the high roof, rusty bits in much of the old wiring that needed to be replaced, and parts where the fencing wasn’t secured to the ground. We eventually had to settle leaving some small holes and hope that people would continue to keep an eye on them. After securing the door with latches and more wiring, we finally were done with the construction bit and passed on the job to the people on house animals to put up perches and get the aviary ready for its new inhabitant.
Our next construction job was the chancho pen. In new quarantine, we just had two pig areas, and we got a new pig at the beginning of my stay who was placed in the same enclosure as Duncan. They did not get along at all, so we moved Duncan temporarily to old quarantine. The new pig only needed to be quarantine for a week since he had previously done a full quarantine period at the other park, but the chancho pen at main camp had lots of escape holes. It was up to us to fill in the holes and secure the pen so that poor little Duncan could get this home back. Having no idea what we were doing aside from being told to dig trenches and fill them in with cement, one of the other volunteers and I began this task one afternoon. We dug as far as the hard earth would allow us in the three main stretches where the fence wasn’t secured, and collected rocks that would surround these areas when we poured in the cement. It was then time to experiment with the cement, minus any equipment. Three portions of sand, one portion of cement, and water to desired consistency, we were told. We hunted down a bag of cement and filled a wheelbarrow with sand from the side of the road. Found a cracked tub that would work to mix our concoction, filled a bucket with water, and trowel in hand, we hauled our goodies along the bumpy path to the chancho pen. We started with a really small batch of cement since we had no idea how it would work – our first bit was kind of dry, but turned nice and cement0like when we added some more water. By evening, we had filled in our smallest hole with a combination of our mixture and heavy rocks cemented along the side. The next morning, our work from the day before looked like it was solidifying well, so we made a nice big batch with nine shovels of sand and three shovels of cement. Mix, mix, mix it around in our cracked little tub that was a bit too small for the task, attempted to get a nice blend of colors rather than distinct streaks and clumps of grey and brown. One of us sloshed in a good amount of water while the other mixed it around, the stirring getting easier as our gigantic cake turned into batter. We dumped the tub into our holes, spreading it around and making the surfaces even with the trowel as our spatula, pressing rocks into the sides and filling in the sides so everything would be glued together. No idea why, but the gate had been locked and the walk to get wire cutters to break in was farther than we wanted to venture, so one of us would hop over the barbed wire fence to even things out from the inside of the pen. Didn’t get pricked by the fence or stuck at all there, though I did brush against a very spiny tree on as I hopped over one side of the pen, though thankfully all it attacked was my jacket. After making a latch on the door that could actually be opened by humans, we gave the area a few days to dry.
Then it was time to move our pig from quarantine world into the general population. He would be by himself, but shared a wall with the other four chanchos and was supposed to be moved in with them after an adjustment period, though that has yet to happen. Quarantine is quite a walk from the chancho pen and we had already discovered when the other chanchos escaped how hard it was to herd them back, so doing a food bribery walk or using a leash weren’t options. We found an appropriate sized but very heavy cage as well as some delicious bribery and slowly carried the awkward contraption over to collect the chancho we had deemed Big Pig aka Bacon, but the organization later officially named Romantico. We were unsure how willing he would be to enter the cage, but pigs are pigs! At first he reached his snout in, grabbed a treat we had dropped, and ran away with it. But we got smarter and held a banana inside one end of the cage so that he had to actually take it from us rather than grab it from the ground. He tried to reach for it and back away, but as soon as he stepped part way into the cage, I shoved the big guy from behind and slid the door shut. Poor thing, but it was better for him to be over at main camp, where he where he would enjoy all of the scraps and leftovers from our meals rather than the boring healthy fruits and vegetables that he got in quarantine. Many of the chanchos are very vocal so we were afraid he would be screaming on the entire journey to his new home, but he didn’t make a peep. No scrambling in circles, no panicking – clearly not comfortable with the bumpy ride and strange situation, but he didn’t seem too terribly stressed. We borrowed a guy who was on construction to help us carry the big, and he had a much easier time lifting his side of the cage than we did. When we finally arrived at his new home, I opened up the door, but he just stood there puzzled, probably too much in shock to know that he was free to roam. I tipped the cage a little bit to get his attention and it suddenly clicked in his head and out he popped to explore his surroundings and chat with his new neighbors, who he seemed to get along with quite nicely.
Chancho transferred out of quarantine, our next project was to build another cage in new quarantine using the metal frame. All put together, they look quite simple, but it was actually quite the task. First came the flooring, for which we used the semi-flexible diamond fencing. With a ragged old tape measure that started at 3 meters, we cut out the appropriately sized piece and secured it to the frame. To get the wire that we used to secure everything, we had to cut the ends of a wire from the role of fencing and twist until it was free. Then one person held each end with pliers and backed away from each other to straighten out the series of bends. We discovered later that it was much easier to have one person hold onto the roll of fencing and the other simply yank out the last wire on the role, the force of the yank straightening the wire in the process. We measured and cut out all the other pieces for the cage – the large pieces and really difficult to cut out because we had a small space in which to unroll the very heavy fencing that kept poking us and trying to roll itself back up again. To make the pieces easier to attach, we tipped the cage onto its side so everything was a little bit lower, though tipping it was difficult because we were in the confines of a fenced area with a roof that the frame repeatedly got caught on and we needed to dislodge it with a stick. Even standing on a log, I was too short to do much of the higher parts, though did have to stand on my toes at time to keep the fencing raised high enough while the only guy amongst us secured the higher pieces. The work got harder as got closer to finishing because we needed to work the wires around more fencing without having the freedom of open space. Triangle pieces, various rectangles, correct lining up of fencing to fit on the door without leaving any stray sharp edges that might poke the cage’s inhabitant. It took several days of work, but was really nice to get finished. It was to either be a spare cage if another animal came or to be converted into a double for Titi, the little monkey in a single cage who would probably be there forever.
On my last day of work,, I asked the vet if any animals would be arriving soon and he said no, so I started the process of connecting the cage to Titi’s. I made a box plenty large enough for her to pass through and connected it to the side of the new empty cage. Pushed the cage close enough to Titi’s so that the edges of my box slid against the side of her cage, and then connected the box to her cage as well. It was really hard to push the wire around so many different corners and through the right holes, so I ended up going into Titi’s house to push the wires to the outside, and then was able to twist them into the right positions and tighten them as I stood in the narrow passageway. I cut a hole in the wall of the new cage so that she would be able to pass through the box into the second room, but didn’t have time to go any further. Hopefully people will finish the job soon by decorating the new cage with branches, platforms, and vegetation, and then open up the hole on her end so that she can pass through and have more space. She’s very shy and not very active, but it still wasn’t fair for her to have that little space, especially for an indefinite amount of time.
The other project of my last few days was clearing out the aviary that Herbie (tapir) had destroyed during his temporary stay. It had been this amazing large enclosure with tons of live vegetation, perches and branches all around, very green and jungly. But during his time in the enclosure, Herbie mowed down the entire place, knocking over all the trees and munching on them, eating all of the plants, leaving a massive pile of poop in one corner. It wasn’t Herbie’s fault at all and at least he was happy with tons of goodies to eat, but it was pretty sad to watch the enclosure be destroyed day by day until it was just a desert scattered with dead plant remains. When he left, we cleared out the area with the intention to remake the aviary (though not nearly as nice as it had been with live plants). Buried all the poop because it was way too much to lug out, and spent several mornings carrying bag after bag of debris over to a compost pile. Raking, scooping, stuffing everything into sacks, using machetes to chop up the remains of all the dead pieces. It was a really exhausting task, but was nice when the area was swept clean and all that remained were the few live plants and a smooth dirt ground. Unfortunately got the verdict from the vets that we couldn’t move any of our birds to this area when it had been turned back into an aviary – because they were in quarantine, they wanted them in the tiny cages so that they could be observed more closely. I argued with this quite a bit but they were set on their opinion. Poor JR the toucan has almost no space to hop around, and Captain the macaw is desperate to get into a large area. If the animals were actually sick or being observed more closely, this would make more sense, but there is really no monitoring done aside from what I established with the logging. So the clearing out of the cage ended up being pretty futile because at this point no one is even going in that nice big area, but hopefully it will come to some use soon.
My hands are pretty hideous from my time at the park - monkey nibbles, mosquito and spider bites that I’m awful at not scratching, holes in my fingers from which I’ve removed endless thorns and spines, scratches from wires, and blisters from pliers.
I still have tons and tons to write about my time there, and will catch up bit by bit as I’m going along. Right now we’re in Rurrenabaque, soon to embark on a three day pampas tour and then a three day jungle tour with an indigenous guide.

Jungle Chases

My time at Ambue Ari wasn’t what I had hoped it would be due to some political and hierarchical issues that I will get into later, but it was still an amazing experience. I didn’t write while I was there aside from jotting down some notes, and I don’t really know where to start here.
One of my first days there, before I knew my way around the main area of camp or had done anything much with the animals, we were lounging around and someone made the ‘coo-eee’ warning call. Everyone jumped up and looked around frantically to see where the noise was coming from, and someone shouted out for us to head towards the monkeys. I sprinted along with the others, none of us having any idea what was going on. We got the sense that maybe one of the monkeys had escaped and we were trying to catch him, and the Bolivians motioned something about spacing ourselves ten meters apart and advancing through the jungle quietly. We would stop and listen, looking into the vegetation, but didn’t know what to listen for. We crept on through, pushing through the dense plants, unsure what we were even looking for. People started running again, so I raced along after them. They leapt at full speed over branches on the path, sped around curves, flew through the jungle. I felt like I was trying to keep up with Mowgli from Jungle Book.
After about twenty minutes of sprinting in circles through the jungle and following the lead of Bolivians shouting out commands, someone in the know stopped moving for long enough to tell the clueless among us that we were chasing after a hunter. A volunteer walked by carrying two howler monkeys on his shoulder, so I had the impression that everything was happening at once – a hunter was on the loose and monkeys had escaped, or maybe the hunter had let the monkeys out as a diversion or to shoot them. The park is protected land and hunters and fisherman are prohibited. He had been in the park to shoot agoutis, the fairly large rodents that roam around freely. One of the Bolivians had been out walking, heard a shot, and found the hunter, who pointed the gun at him and told him not to make a sound. The hunter ran away, at which point Hymei shouted out and we all ran into the jungle, staying close together to intimdate him in number if we found him.
After about forty five minutes, we headed back to camp and got more of the story on what we had been searching for; I got the impression that the escaped monkeys and the hunter were completely separate and coincidental incidents. Someone had brought back a dead agouti that had been shot in the mouth but abandoned by the hunter when he was discovered. People rode up and down the road to see if the hunter had left a motorcycle on the road,, but nothing was to be found and eventually the search was exhausted. Several hours later, there was another shout and commotion, but by the time I put on my shoes, the search party had disappeared into the jungle. They came back not too long afterwards leading a shamefaced fisherman and carrying a stake laden with freshly caught fish. Not knowing anything yet about the way things worked at the park yet, I was shocked that there were three such dramatic events in just a few hours – escaped monkeys, a hunter, and a fisherman. As the story was gradually unveiled, it became clear that the monkeys were out already; they were allowed to roam free during the day and they were simply brought back to keep them under reigns and away from the hunter during the uproar. The hunter and fisherman had been out together and separated when we sieged the area. Several of the larger guys kept the fisherman enclosed in the office while they waited for the director to come. A bit later, the man was led, head down, to the road and taken to the police station in Guarayos to be questioned. The ordeal with him apparently went out for several days, but he eventually revealed the identity of the hunter and he was arrested as well – though I have no idea what form of reprimand they received.
Prior to this incident, the park had a system where two people were assigned every morning to dawn patrol, where they would walk along the road within the limits of the park land to hopefully scare off any lurking poachers. But after the eventful evening, everyone put up a big argument about how unreasonable and unsafe this was – what could a few volunteers do when faced in the early morning with a hunter with a gun, and how would our presence even deter them? Dawn patrol was put on hold for about a week, and then they reinstated it just on weekends for now, the time when everyone around knows that there are less volunteers at the park because Saturday afternoons are off. The group sizes were increased from two to six plus, they were given blindingly bright flashlights, and people signed up for the task voluntarily rather than being assigned to it. We were also all encouraged to stay at the park rather than go into town in the evenings and on afternoons off. So changes were made after the afternoon of chases, but it still remains a pretty awful system for which they have yet to find a good solution.
Much less dramatic was my daily routine. I would wake every morning at 6:30 to the shouts and banging on the door of the person assigned to wake up duty, sometimes supplemented by the much more pleasant sound of music. Nice and warm in my sleeping bag under my mosquito net, on the bottom bunk in my dorm room that was dark from the tarps pulled down to keep out the wind, it was hard to get up in the cold morning. I usually stayed in bed until just before seven, at which point I pulled on my dirty clothes and hiking boots and headed to the animal kitchen to prepare breakfast. Most of the others had morning jobs that varied daily and weekly, but being in quarantine, that was where we stayed. I had breakfast com on my first day before starting quarantine, which was pretty awful, having to clean up the mess that people had left from the night before and then clean the dishes that quite a few kindred people had decided not to do themselves. It was really nice to not have to wake up each morning to the surprise of a dreaded task like bathroom duty, but to head straight into the routine of feeding my animals. It went fairly quickly when there were four or five of us, though some mornings several wouldn’t show unless we went and dragged them out of bed, but it definitely turned into a time crunch as our numbers dwindled down. We picked out a selection of fruit, veggies, and seeds from the various storage areas, as well as a cup of milk with calcium for our piglet. Always had to pop a head into the kitchen to make sure that the oatmeal was on for the monkeys, and then wait until the monkey men (the guys who worked in monkey park) had mixed in two capfuls of vitamins before taking a jug. Washed the food, soaked it in an iodine solution, set out our colorful plastic tubs and buckets, one for each enclosure. When a knife could be found amidst the morning bustle and knife shortage in the kitchen, cut the food into appropriately sized pieces and distributed it among the bowls – tomatoes and cabbage for the tortoises and pigs, big chunks of yucca and potatoes for the bigger pigs and smaller pieces for the baby. Everyone loved cucumber and apples. Bananas and papayas or melon for the monkeys, birds, and coati. Searched for our three quarantine water jugs that always seemed to go missing and filled them with water from the house, using getting pretty wet shoes as well. A slosh of the hot sweetened oatmeal was poured into one bowl stacked on top of a second for the two monkeys in the new quarantine, and the rest remained in the jug and was carried with four plates to the coati and night monkeys. Depending on how many of us were awake and present, also taking into account who was too afraid to feed Teangi (our food-aggressive coati), we split off to deliver the goods. My favorite was to do the night monkey and Teangi route, visiting a bit with the animals as I picked up their old food, usually scolded the night monkeys for not eating their oatmeal from the day before, cleaned their platforms and refreshed their water bowls, and placed their food in various places around the enclosure for them to find throughout the morning.
In the past, all food had been placed on patuju leaves on the platforms, but when I arrived, the other quarantine volunteers had just begun to process of hiding the food as a form of enrichment, except for with the birds, two of whom had difficulty getting around and the other who was too aggressive to reach very far into his small enclosure without getting a nice toucan peck. My first few days, we fed three meals a day, which we all agreed was excessive and led to wasted food, wasted time, and the inability to monitor appetite or food preferences. We spoke to the head vet about our concerns and were at first strongly refuted, but we pressed on and he eventually allowed us to do a week trial of just breakfast and dinner, which proved successful and will hopefully continue on beyond my departure. We still gave a lunchtime banana to Captain, the blue macaw who had arrived recently and in a very malnourished state, as well as a small lunch to Duncan the piglet, though that is probably being cut out because he is getting quite the belly. The tortoises were hardly eating in the cold weather so for them we put out lunch rather than breakfast, and it was nice to see them crawl over and munch on a chunk of cucumber as I laid it down rather than just stay huddled in their shells and leave the food to spoil.
After washing up the dishes and hanging them up to dry, we waited for the 8am breakfast call (or when there were fewer of us, finished work late and didn’t get to the comedor till everyone else had begun). When someone on breakfast com called out desayauno, everyone scrambled into the line to get dishes, two bread rolls, butter, occasional dinner leftovers, and a cup of hot chocolate, coffee, or tea. Breakfast was the meal that never filled anyone up, so we supplemented it with purchases from town that we kept in a closed bin to keep out the rats and cockroaches. Instant oatmeal with hot water and milk powder, sweetened with a spoonful of jam or dulce de leche. We put spreads on the bread, which we occasionally toasted over the gas stove as water was boiling if Tessa or I finished our morning tasks early. Occasionally bought a boiled egg that the park sold or cheese empanadas from the empanada lady who came to make a very quick and easy sale of her full basket. There was usually a long line by the bench when she showed up and Lorenzo, the macaw who had free reign of camp, liked to sit by her basket and bug her, pecking at her clothes or the napkins.
Following breakfast were anuncios, which were sometimes far too long and ridiculous, first introducing new volunteers and bidding farewell and thank you to those departing, and then going into any special plans or assignments for the day as well as addressing the constant drama of some sort or other. Washed up our dishes and by 9 or 9:30, started the day’s work. In quarantine, we were very self-directed, as the park is so focused on cats that the other animals are a bit neglected. When I arrived, there was almost no information in the quarantine binder, but the others were in the process of a food trial which they documented, as well as writing up a hygiene protocol and a daily and weekly schedule. I made behavior logs for each individual animal for us to note anything of significance including changes in behavior, appetite, environment, health, etc, because there were really no records or ways to notice patterns or pass on important information to future volunteers. Also got all of the records from the vets and used them to make an inventory of the animals that we had, including what little information there was on species, gender, arrival date, and history. It was disappointing with how little there was, with very little if any background information, no exam write ups whatsoever, the only notations after their arrival being the date that an anti-parasitic medication was administered. I also made a construction project list, including the dates that we had finished our projects as well as things that need to be done in the future. We stuffed all of what we had written into our folder, which unfortunately wasn’t an easy-to-use binder like all of the cats had for the charts that volunteers filled in daily). On one of my last days, I organized our paperwork into categories within the folder and can only hope that future volunteers will continue with the behavior logging, brainstorming, and keeping everything up to date.
Anyway, aside from meal preparation and delivery, the bulk of every day was different and we decided each morning what needed to be done. There was of course the cleaning – sweeping under the metal cages in new quarantine that were raised above the ground as to enable to falling of debris, as well as removing the really old plants and ything obviously coated in poop or old food. We did a weekly deep cleaning of each area, using disinfectant and detergent to scrub the surfaces, collecting large ferns to create clean flooring, cutting down patuju stalks and various branches to freshen up their houses. The ferns were quite the challenge because most were covered in thorns, so we had to find ferns that were large enough but at the right maturity level that they wouldn’t prick us or the animals. My machete skills are definitely not top notch and it didn’t help that the blades were dull, so I usually preferred to take out the old plants while someone else chopped down the new. I wasn’t a fan of chopping down the jungle that surrounded us, bit by bit, but our animals didn’t have any live plants in their enclosures and it wasn’t fair at all to leave them with just bare metal cages and branches, or barren dirt grounds for those with slightly larger areas.
Apparently a month or two ago, quarantine was in even further neglect and no one did anything for them aside from basic feeding and cleaning, but very recently, volunteers began the improvement process. The enrichment that we did, both with hiding food and supplying fresh plants, was a huge step that should really be common sense in animal care, but there was no one to devote any time, energy, or passion to engage in this very significant but simple task. It’s all about the cats and while I am disappointed that I couldn’t work with a cat and probably would have gained more of an exciting and unique personal experience from that, I’m glad that I was able to put in work in an area where it was desperately needed. Aside from putting in natural forms of enrichment, I strung up hammocks out of blankets for two of our little monkeys – Lucas the squirrel monkey especially loved to bounce around in it from the moment I put it up.

Hola From The Jungle

Don´t have time for a real post - I´ve hardly been typing on my computer, and there isn´t a USB port on the computer here. Only a few computers in the town 5 minutes away and they are super slow and close early. I´m not working with cats because of a bunch of complicated things, but I´m working in quarantine, where animals are put when they first arrive or they are sick. Or they are stuck there when there is no other place for them to go. We have five monkeys, a coati, some birds, wild pigs (including an adorable baby), and an awesome coati. Very mixed experience (mostly with how the organization is run, etc.) there and we are actually only staying two weeks and then going on for a river tour and traveling around for the rest of the month, not sure yet where. Will probably type a bunch in a week on the bus ride up to Trinidad and should be online again on Friday or Saturday.