Last general news till 27th of august
Zandro the Vet: still there, working hard, managing that the park’s animals are doing well and that there is enough food for volunteers and animals.
Noemi: those who don’t know her, she’s the person that, together with Zandro, runs the place, and basically takes care of the organization of the animals and the volunteers. She’s still there, working hard from 6 in the morning when she goes to fly the eagle Ushuka, till 6 or 7 pm when she again flies the eagle for 1 hour after a full day spent with her pumas Inti, Wara, Yassi.
German: not at the park anymore, he went back to help his family in the community of San Pedro (2Km from the park). His doing well, we played soccer together in his community, almost every Sunday afternoon.
Jaime (17 yrs): after 3 years at the park he still enjoyes the work with his “brother” Jaguarupi, and even though he is tired of the constant work (for a 17 year old, it’s pretty much) he is looking forward to go back home to Oruro for some vacation.
Juan Carlitos (16 yrs): he is a story on his own. He is also from the community of San Pedro and he choused to volunteer at the park. For the work he does, he gets financial help and support for his studies at school which he visits every morning. In the last period (Noemi thinks it’s because he was excited by the fact that Elsa started to walk) he didn’t listen to what Zandro and Noemi told him to do and he was lacking of respect to them. Zandro decided that it was better to give him some forced vacations to give him the chance to think about weather he wants to stay at the park and be a good boy or stay at his parent’s house. He has since returned, and is back helping around the sanctuary.
Agripina (15 yrs): a friendly young girl that cooked us delicious fried bread every morning for breakfast (when the old hard backed Santa Maria bread was missing). She goes to school every morning, like the other kids, and in the afternoon she helps with animals in case of volunteer shortage.
Wilber ‘Osito’ (13 yrs): the loveliest (sorry for giving a preference but he really deserves it) of all 4 kids. He always helps everybody when he can, has always a smile ready for you, and sometimes he just comes towards you and tells you “I’m happy!”. The only one at the park that makes an honest effort to learn some English.
The animals
Pumas (all females)
Inti, Wara, Yassi (1 yr, 8 months): still living in the same cage all together, but it starts to be too small for them because they begun to fight for space (nothing dramatic). In the next 4 months 3 new cages will be needed to separate them.
Wayra (2 yrs, 6months -not sure-): end of july, beginning of august she escaped because she slipped out of her collar. It took them only a few hours to catch her again and put her on a rope, because she didn’t know where to go! (This also helps people to understand the reasons why this animals can’t be released)
She is really skinny right now because she didn’t eat much in the last 3 weeks after she escaped (0,5kg of chicken, or nothing). Some days she walks to the lagoon and chills out there, but she is not going to the river in the last period.
Elsa (approx. 4 yrs): I worked with her for about 6 weeks and during her last heat period (between the 10th and 23rd of august) I managed to put a leash on her collar without getting her to angry and walk with her all her path (while Wayra wasn’t walking) for a total of 7 walks. Than her heat period ended and it was not possible anymore to put a rope on her.
I downloaded this picture from this website...click me
She is afraid of ropes and carabinas because they -of course- put tension on her neck, and it happened a few times already that she spent a whole night with a rope on her neck that got stuck somewhere, and she had only a walking range of a few steps in one occasion, while in a second episode she basically was hanging from the platform (difficult to explain, she basically couldn’t go anywhere, and just sit down with the rope hanging from the platform). But when she’s on heat, she’s not that afraid so it is possible to walk her.
Yuma (1yr, 5 months): a Puma that comes from the Parque Macha in Villa Tunari. A new cage has been built for her by the Quest group (from England) that left on the end of July. She’s now enjoying a piece of jungle on her own that starts from the Monkey Park, and a trail that goes to the river, where she can swim every day. She has a great character with a strong will of her own. For girls it is difficult to work with her becouse she has a strong preference for guys (she was brought to IWY for attacking females of the household she grew up in) but very challenging and rewarding once you win her trust. For guys she can be a lot of fun to work with becouse she can decide to fall in love with them completely.
Jaguars (all males)
Jaguaru (3yrs?): After Troy, and a few weeks later Ville, both left, it was hard to walk Ru in the morning because of shortage of volunteers that could spend all the time with him and get to know him. Right now there is an Australian volunteer that is working with him, but he never walked with someone else that showed him how it works so it’s hard for them to get the confidence to take him on a leash. Right now he is enjoying the runner (although he gets a little bit bored with it) and one day they managed to get enough people to walk him (Noemi on the lead, 3 guys behind), but instead of walking he spent ALL DAY at the river, sleeping in the canoe.
Jaguarupi (3yrs, 6 months?): He is the biggest and heaviest ‘cat’ in the park. He is doing really good. I worked with him for 1 week, and I can say that for being a jaguar it’s pretty easy to walk him. His jumps are scary at the beginning but you get used to it and you have to keep in mind that he is not a housecat, even though he sometime behave like one. They calculate him as 120 Kg in weight. He looks really healthy.
Ocelots (males and females)
Lazycat: Bex… HEEEELLP!
O.B. and Engine: Still there, together. Engine’s going nuts because he can’t stand the cage and the proximity of a hot female without being able to do his job as a potential male. O.B. is kind of feeling the same but she has the privilege and the tameness to be walked every morning, so she doesn’t suffer too much. Cindy (which I beg to revise or even cancel what I’m writing if she wants to write something on her own) managed to rise enough money from her friends/parents (about 320$USD) to build a cage for Engine. She left the option open to use this money to build the cage for I.W.Y. So thanks to this wonderfully crazy Aussie girl the park has already a financial solution at least for 1 cat.
Vanesso (8 months): he is an energetic nice male ocelot that loves girls (human ones) and is lovely to walk around with. Ursula pleas write something about him…
The other animals
Faustino (8yrs): in the last period he is being a lovely friend to play with or even to share the bed for some nights. He never bit anyone in the six weeks I’ve been at the park.
Coco (8yrs): he caused some troubles at the end of July. He wanted to bite every single human male exemplar that had long hair, and he managed to get some guys. Than he hurt somehow his tail and could not use it anymore for at least 2 weeks, and he got even more depressive and gray that he used to be. As all the animals he just was looking for attention and is badly in need for love. I could hug him and would lean his head on my arm and project his look into infinity.
Junior (approx. 1yr, 6months): He is not doing well at all. He continues to eat toilet paper (used or not doesn’t make a difference for him), soap, lollypops that he steals from the volunteers room, soaped water…basically everything he shouldn’t. He has almost constant diarrhea and doesn’t get any bigger (he is half the size he should be). The park is still trying to integrate him into the wild group that lives free but comes to eat every day, but Junior is not really interested, I guess he loves toilet paper too much.
Etilica: She is leaving with the wild howler monkey group right now. 2 weeks ago she gave birth to a baby, the first of this group. The baby is healthy and lovely but we all agreed that without the hair he looks pretty much like an alien (sorry Etilica).
Bolita (7 moths): a giant anteater baby. She has a chance to go back to nature because the anteaters are solitary animals so she doesn’t need a group to survive in the jungle.
Ushuka (eagle): is ready to be released, papers are missing. The environmental Institution that is responsible for her freedom and that has the power to decide weather or not she is going to be free, has to come to the park and have a look at the bird before they decide. Unfortunately this could take ages. The bird is suffering the heat of the jungle, and gets only about 2 flying hours of about 70m, where it flies attached to a tiny rope.
Everyone feel free to add or change not correct information. This idea (special thanks to Daryl for the idea and for the layout of the Blog) is a special way to keep up-to-date people that worked in the park, and not only.
See you somewhere around the world
Felix from Vienna, Austria
evergreen_82@hotmail.it (there is a '_' between the 'n' an the '8')
http://felix-evergreen.spaces.live.com
posted by Parque Ambue Ari @ 9:51 AM
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