YaguaruI will sort out the quality of these pics once i get to a computer with decent internet.
Sorry its been so long since i last wrote but i have been well and truly wrapped up in this crazy little park in the bolivian jungle. I started to write this blog entry about a month ago but couldnt finish it because there is so much i wanted to say about this place. i have attempted to finish the article about 4 or 5 times since but everytime i come back to it, something crazy has happened in the meantime and either all i want to do is write about that or my perspective on the whole park shifts. Anyway i m gonna see what i can do. I have been here for about nine weeks now weeks now since i left Sucre via an overnight bus. What should have been my first night in the park ended up being spent in a friendly bolivianŽs barn in the little town of Santa Maria 10k from the park. He was sat next to me on the bus and didnt think i would be able to find the park in the dark so kindly offered me his barn floor. When i arrived at the park the next morning, amongst the 20 or
Ru in his canoehe loves to have good drink of the river from the side of his canoe
so volunteers already there, there was a danish guy whom i knew from my language school in Sucre who helped me to settle in straight away. After finding a bed, eating some breakfast and filling in a few registration forms, I was asked if i would like to work with a four year old male Jaguar called Yaguaru or just Ru. At this time i was still unsure about what i wanted to do at the park, as i wasnt sure whether i wanted to work with monkeys or cats. But rather than stall i thought well why not? So a couple of hours later I was walking through the jungle towards the cage of Yaguaru with Zack and Dave, two other volunteers from Oz. As we walked they told me a little bit about the history of Ru and about what to expect form him. Yaguaru was captured by hunters when still a pup and it is beleived his mother was killed, he was then sold on to a family as a pet but as he grew too big he was abandoned by his family and fortunately brought to the park. By this time he had had too much
contact with humans and was therefore too used to them to be released into the wild. With animals like Ru the park trys to provide them with a form of life as close as possible to that of an animal in the wild. Ru lives in a fairly sizeable cage deep in the jungle and everyday, weather permitting, a team of three volunteers attempt to walk him around his trail through the jungle. Anyway, after a half an hour walk we arrived at his cage, hooked two two metre ropes onto his collar and let him out of his cage and began to let him walk his trail. His trail can take him anything from 2 hours to 5 hours to complete depending on his mood. On my first day Dave and Zack initially took the two ropes with me following closely behind making sure that Ru could see me whenever he turned around. After about 20 minutes of following and observing i was offered one of the ropes by Zack, i took it and after about 5 minutes of me on the rope Ru turned round and looked me up and down and jumped at my knees and wrestled
me to the ground. At this point Zack and Dave took both the ropes and tied them to a tree and all i had to do was make sure he dint turn me around and gradually ease myself away from his grasp. After maybe a minute or so I managed to do this and was told he was playing softly despite the fact i was absolutely exhausted. After I'd escaped we left him tied to the tree and gave him some chill out time before we returned to him and attempted to walk him again. He jumped me and wrestled me to the ground two more times before it was decided he had had enough (or rather i had and was scared shitless everytime he looked anywhere near me) and it was time to lead him back to the cage. This was achieved by letting him stalk me (because i was the one he was interested in) back to his cage. Basically i had to walk out in front of him with my back turned to him as Jaguars cant resist it when they see your back, and if he tried to run at me Zack and Dave had to
Mafaldaa crazy cappucin only here for about two weeks but in that short period rapidly became the most feared animal in the park. This is her trying to steal my camera
hold him back. Pooh in my pants. After getting him back to his cage and having a break we took Ru down to the side of a river about 30 metres from his cage. Down by his river is his favourite area and where he is most chilled out so fortunately i didnt face anymore jumps from him. After perhaps half an hour drinking riverwater and eating grass, we walked Ru back to his runner (a 20m cable we attach his ropes to and where he has the freedom to stroll up and down as he pleases), then we cleaned his cage, and put meat out for him. Once he had whiffed the smell of meat is in cage he would usually be straight back in and the day would be done. This sequence of events (not quite as dramatic as that) has formed the major part of my day, every day for almost two months. During these two months i have really come to appreciate what a spectacular animal Yaguaru is. He weighs about 100kg, about average for a Jaguar, he is amazingly quick (he often likes to run parts of his trail and we have to keep up
holding the ropes, he is only jogging but we are at full speed trying our hardest not to run into to trees or fall over logs), obviously supremely strong, but never uses all of his strength with us (jaguars are the third biggest cat behind the tiger and the lion and they have the strongest jaw of all cats) however most noticbly, he is incredibly intelligent, everyday is an adventure with him and it is always fascinating to see his response to new things he encounters while walking his trail. My own personal relationship with him has improved dramatically (at least from my side anyway) from being genuinly fearful of him after my first few days to a point where i can really relax around him. Ru has a complicated relationship with people. I think he really genuinly likes them and often shows them a lot of affection but at times too much and all he wants to do is play with them. By playing i meaning jumping at them and wrestling with them on the floor. Usually he has one of the team of three volunteers on whom he concentrates his attention. If one of the three is new
its usually him but often there are certain people he just seems to want to play with all the time. Fortunately for me, after my few days of jumps at the start, his attention has largely been focused elsewhere. For example, during the last month i have been working with a south african called Rob who didnt have a single day with Ru where he dint get jumped and I barely got jumped for the entire month. Noone really knows why this happens. It may depend on the stature of the person (if someone is big he will see them as more dominant and try to knock them down) also they way someone attempts to fend off his jumps may have somthing to do with it, if a lot of force is used this excites him and he plays harder and is likely to come back for more. However there are always exceptions to the rule. Another volunteer i have spent time with working is an english guy called matt who before i arrived at the park had been working with Ru for 2 months and was almost immune to receiving jumps. However after he took a month break from
working with Ru as soon as he returned all Ru wanted to do was jump him and it was very difficult to walk Ru as he wanted to do very little else. Despite his volatile relationship with his volunteers all of them without exception grow to love him, and i am know exception, often i can spend hours at the end of the day thinking about what he did that day and how he seemed to be so at ease eith me at a particular moment, but then the next day heŽll jump me and iŽll wonder what i did wrong (or maybe right in his eyes, who knows?) Apart from working with Ru, which is my principal job at the park, the day is structured as follows. Every day everyone is up at 7 and spends the first hour of the day preparing food, cleaning cages and feeding one of the house animals. These are the animals that live in and around the camp area and can be monkeys, pigs, all kinds of birds, a deer and a few others. After this hour there is a few other odd jobs to be done before we eat breakfast and then
after breakfast its off to work with your animal, Ru for me, but there are 3 other Jaguars in the park, 8 pumas and 5 ocelots all of which have one or more volunteer working eith them if numbers permit. During my time here i have been extremely lucky as i have had the opportunity to walk with two of the other three Jaguars, Katie a really cute and playful two year old female, and Yaguarupi, a real giant, a 130 kilo jaguar whose behaviour is not that disimilar to a big dog. The other Jaguar Sama does not come out of his cage because he was trained to be wild but the bolivian government refused to let him be released. The good news is that within the last month we have just completed a huge new enclosure for him, which he seems to be really happy in. I have also had the fortune of walking with three of the Pumas, Tupac a blind one year old male, Yuma a really friendly female puma (towards males at least) and Wara another really friendly female puma. Apart from the cats some of the real stars of the park are the monkeys.
Rugreat picture of him but a shame about the ropes hanging from his neck in all senses
Particularly Coco and Faustino, two male howler monkeys. Both of them suffered mistreatment at the hands of their previous owners and where brought to the park for a better life. They are both really accustomed to humans and thus spend all their time chilling out in the camp. They even spend their nights sleeping in our beds and i was lucky enought that when i arrived i was given one of the 3 beds they most like to sleep in and on my second night had both of them snuggling up to me throughout the night. It was quite hard to sleep with them in my bed for the first couple of nights and i struggled to sleep for fear of crushing them or something but after a while i have become used to it and find myself fighting wtih other volunteers to try and get them sleeping in my bed. i guess that sounds a little weird but they are just such cool animals. My personal favourite is Faustino, he doesnt spend as much time sleeping in my bed as Coco as he is a real ladies man and likes to snuggle up to the girls but he is
truly hilarious animal who has so much personality and he loves a good playfight, swinging down from trees at you and trying to grab you and start chewing on your hands and arms. A good playfight with Fausti is a real highlight of the day. Coco is the cuter of the two and really loves a good cuddle, but he is a shifty character. He often stalks people, particularly males of a certain appearance and during my time here two guys have actually left early after receiving nasty bites from him and and being constantly stalked by him. Its actually really not a good situation and has apparantly been going on for a long time. However, nobody at the park knows what to do about it and moreover noone is really prepared to do anything about it. Another monkey i have grown really fond of is Thalia a young female howler monkey, who we have been trying to integrate with a group of semi wild howler monkeys who are free in the park. Unfortunately this has not been going to well as she seems to be scared of them and they seem to think she is crazy (which she is).
All this means she is becoming more and more used to human contact and less and less likely to join a group of monkeys and live in the wild. The real shame is that she has a real disliking to Bolivian women and attacks them if she is around them and therefore cannot be a house monkey like Coco and Faustino. For this reason she has her own little house out in the jungle where she sleeps at night and for the last couple of weeks i have been going out there regularly with my sleeping bag and spending the night there with her. This is usually a really cool experience as as soon as it gets light she comes down to me and starts grooming my hair as if im a monkey too. Sometimes though she can be a little bit sexually aggresive towards males and she often tries to grab their hands and hump them. One night in particular i struggled to get much sleep as she was continually sticking her bum in my face throughout the night. Not really the most pleasant experience. There have also been a few other monkeys in the park who have been there for a few weeks before moving onto the organisations other park which specialises in monkeys. They are always a joy to have around. Other animals of note in the park include Panchi a female pig who is loved by some and despised by others. she wanders around the camp freely always trying to get into peoples rooms or the kitchen. If she manages to get into a room it can be hilarious to watch her go crazy destroying things however if its you on the end of her rampage its really not that fun (all ive lost so far to her is a jar of jam and some cereal others have lost much more) The most notable thing about her, however, is her smell, she really does stink and can be smelt from about 10 metres away. Personally, I find myself in the pro panchi camp as the havoc she causes is always hilarious. And also Mundy (or to some Shani) a female dog from the nearby town of Santa Maria who one night got hit by a truck and was brought back to the park by some volunteers and eventually brought back to health by the park vet. When she was back to full health (she still has a slight limp) we took her back to Santa Maria but she would always come back to the park even if it meant walking the whole 10km on her own. Eventually she came back so many times that it was decided that she could stay at the park and she has become one of the most popular animals in the park. She is such a curious animal and is always sticking her nose into things to see what they are, whether it be a monkeys bum or a Pumas face, her nose will be there. It is amazing that with all the crazy and exotic animals about that Dogs are still just the coolest! I have been planning to leave the park for about three weeks now but things keep conspiring against me. Firstly, On a day off about 5 weeks ago my bank card was swallowed because i forgot the pin so i had to wait to leave until at leat that arrived. Then the day before i planned to leave, two and a half weeks ago, a female puma named Wayra escaped and Wayra was being taken care of by the girl i was meant to be leaving with Fiona, so i stayed until that sitution was resolved. She was missing for 9 days and it has to be some of the craziest 9 days in the parks history. During her first days of freedom she was spotted a few times but never came close enough to be recaptured. Then after two or three days of her being free the park went crazy as fires broke out it seemed all over the park and spread quickly as it is the dry season at the moment. So for three days straight almost all the the volunteers were on fire duty and were out all day clearing tracks in the jungle in order to make fire breaks. One night in particular the fires reached an area of dried out wet land on the border of the park and were advancing rapidly and really high. Consequently it was decided that Katie, the playful two year old female jaguar had to be moved from her cage as it was at risk from the fire. So at a bout 1 in the morning me and three other volunteers walked her through the jungle and down part of a road (where she went nuts when a car passed) and into the cage of the escaped Wayra. The next three hours of the night were spent clearing the vegetation arund the outsdie of SamaŽs cage as if the fire advanced to his cage there was very little we could to move him. Eventually though at about 4 in the morning the severity of the fire died down and we got to have a few hours sleep before waking up at 7 to go and continue creating firebreaks. Eventually after three days of seriously hard work the fire breaks were complete and seemed to work really well so the panic situation was over. During this three day period very little had been seen of Wayra but after about a week of freedom she began to be sighted regularly and was coming closer and closer to camp but sill noone was able to capture her. Those that had seen her said she was really skinny and her behaviour suggested that also. She was seen attacking one of the semi tame howler monkeys in the park who had to be eventually put down and on the same day she attacked one of the Pios (ostrich like birds that are kept in a large enclosure near the camp) the Pios were obvioulsy very flustered by the situation and one of them managed to jump clear of a 5 foot high fence and was momentarily free before it decided to jump over another five foot high fence into a pigs cage. I didnt see any of this and arrived on the scene about five minutes later with a girl called louise and neither of us could understand why the Pio was in the pigs cage? Anyway the Pio was eventually herded back into his own cage and has not tried to escape since. Later that night Wayra was eventually caught as she walked into a cagetrap where meat had been left for her and the door shut behind her as she took it. This was about 5 days ago now and so after a few more days at the park Fiona and I were all set to leave again. So on Wednesday i arrived in Santa Cruz went to the post office where my bank card was supposedly waiting for me but it was not there. Therefore i now have to wait for another bank card to be sent so it looks like i am going back to the park for at least another couple weeks. I think something is trying to tell me not to leave
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