Jaguars, Monkeys and Pumas

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The parque was primarily home to cats, with six jaguars, four ocelots, fifteen pumas and a Brazilian wild cat. However they had howler monkeys, a night monkey and a squirrel monkey. Their bird populace included pios, parabas, parrots, macaws and toucans. Sprinkled in for good measure was a tapir, a deer and tortoises. And that's just the animals the parque officially took care of, with no thought of the amazing array of wild animals living on parque lands - including the biggest tarantulas you could ever hope to see!
I came out the other end having been bitten by a jaguar, a spider, a toucan, dozens of ants and millions of mosquitoes. But for the most part, I dealt with a select few animals.

Ru

The fist week or so at Parque Ambue Ari for me were spent with Yaguaru, or Ru as he is known. The second largest cat in the park, Ru weighed in at a little over 100kgs and looked like the perfect jaguar – muscular, built low to the ground and with a huge head. He also still had his jaguar instincts, liking to run, stalk, jump and climb. Until only a year or so earlier, he had been allowed out to walk on a lead but he had broken his leg when jumping out of a tree he had climbed in his cage which had seen his temperament change. Subsequently, his walks had gone from being on a lead to being on a runner system, whereby his lead was attached to an overhead cable, keeping him at all times away from the people walking with him.
A day with Ru was typically supposed to be in two sessions – a morning session where we would take him on his runner down to the river for a swim and an afternoon session where we would take him for a walk on his longer system of runners at the back of his cage. But for the first few days that I was there, the system was a little off-kilter. On my first day there it was particularly windy, having rained the night before. The rain excites jaguars, as does the wind, so we were told to keep Ru in his cage for that day until the wind died down or he would get too excited. I know what you’re thinking, who cares if a jaguar on a rope gets excited, he can only go within three metres of his overhead cable anyway. The problem is that his excitement often sees him running wildly which can lead to him getting tangled in branches or fallen trees, so you have to go untangle him and that’s dangerous.
Then on my second day we spent the morning cleaning up the park in preparation for an inspection from the Bolivian government for some kind of accreditation. The third day we sat around waiting for the representative from the Bolivian government to come, which he didn’t and so we did the same thing – sitting around – on my fourth day. Luckily, he came to Ru early in the day on the fourth day and so we were able to take Ru out for a swim on his river runners.
I was working on Ru with an Israeli guy named Gado, who was of that rare breed of Middle Eastern with blonde dread locks. Gado had been working with Ru for about six weeks and had a deep affection for the jag. I had asked Gado the day before what he wore when he went swimming with Ru.
“Nothing,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“Au natural?”
“Yes. I worked with these English guys who couldn’t believe I was getting naked around them. This is a fucked up culture.”
So on my first Saturday, having clipped Ru on to his river runner, I went down to the river, stripped off and went for a swim. You had to keep out of Ru’s reach at all times because, while he could do some serious damage out of the water, whilst in the water he swam with his claws out, meaning he would in all likelihood tear you to pieces if he got a hold of you. I almost saw this first hand a few days later when Gado found himself unable to get his feet on the ground and the current carried him in to Ru’s swimming range. Ru was on him in no time and Gado had to push him away before swimming as fast as he could out of Ru’s range.
As an added bonus, the river we were swimming in was a known home for piranhas, caiman and anacondas – they had released an adolescent anaconda (a not fully grown 3 metres long) in to the river just the week before we had arrived! But what was most terrifying was the spectre of the “penis fish” – a fish that senses the warmth of your urine and swims up it in to your urethra if you relive yourself in the river. Whether it’s a real species of fish or not I never found out, nor did I ever pee in the water to test it. More than anything though, the swim was a great opportunity to cool off. It was almost always hot and humid during the day and so to get in the water was a welcome change.
Afternoons on Ru’s back runner were a little less entertaining. Basically it was a series of connected cables that Ru would walk around, smelling the plants, marking his territory and sleeping. I would usually spend the time reading and clipping Ru on to his next runner.
Feeding time with Ru was generally the most entertaining time of the day with him. We would lock him in to his management cage and then tie his lunch up in leaves and put them in various places around his cage. My favourite place was up a tree, though hanging from a vine was also usually pretty good. We would free him once we were out of the cage and watch him climb up the tree in a few bounds or leap up to the vine to get his lunch.
Overall however, I found my time with Ru slightly tedious. The day to day routine rarely changed and so it was, for the most part, watching a jaguar walk around or swim – essentially things you can do at a zoo. Gado and Sebastian (a German guy who also worked with Ru from time to time) obviously had a lot of affection for him and loved to spend time with him. I was just kind of bored with it and so ended up asking if there was another cat I could work with.
Ask and you shall receive...

Rupi

Not long after asking about a possible change of cat I was told I was going to start working with Rupi, another jaguar. Rupi had arrived at the park as a cub and since Yaguaru was already there and pretty well fully grown, they decided to name the new jaguar cub Yaguarupi, which means “little jaguar”. It turned out that the name went from being appropriate to ironic because, weighing in at around 130kgs, Rupi was the biggest cat in the park. He was taller and longer than Ru and so not as compact and muscular. I had also been told by a few people that, whilst Ru still had his jaguar instincts, Rupi had been raised by humans and so did not have the instincts of the big cat he was. The rumour went that when he had recently had a live chicken put in his cage for a treat, he had not known what to do with it. As a result, Rupi was still allowed out for walks.
With this in mind, I went out for my first day with Rupi. I was being trained to replace Steffen, a tall German and would be working with Maor, another Israeli, and Jaime, a Bolivian who lived in the park and had known Rupi his whole life.
A walk with Rupi required two people, although a third would usually come along for observation or training. He had a collar with three d-loops on it and you simply attached a rope on a carabina to the d-loops. Then the person who had clipped him on took lead on the rope, walking a few paces behind Rupi and a second person walked behind the first, holding the rest of the rope. On my first day with Rupi, Maor took the first lead and I was taking up the rope’s slack, with Steffen walking behind us. Rupi came out of his cage, gave Maor’s arm a lick and more or less ignored me. I was excited to be actually walking a jaguar instead of just watching one on a lead but, having heard so many stories of Rupi’s placid nature and lack of jaguar instincts, I figured it was going to be a walk in the park. Within ten minutes I was to be relieved of my misjudgements.
Rupi’s walking trails went straight to the river with two loops coming off the main trail – the smaller loop branching off about halfway to the river and going back to his cage and the bigger loop coming off about two-thirds of the way to the river and ending up at the river at the same spot the main trail did. We came to the small trail for the first time and started down it when Rupi decided to turn around. But rather than head back on the main trail and towards the big loop and the river, he made a beeline for me. He stuck his head in between my legs, at which point Steffen told me to give him my arm. Not entirely sure what part of my arm I was supposed to give him or how I was supposed to get it near his mouth when it was between my legs, I did nothing. Rupi turned his head and started giving my upper thigh a bit of a gnawing. He then started trying to jump up on me a little bit. “Help,” I gulped feebly. Maor tried to pull him back but Rupi used his position between my legs, along with his superior weight, to fall down and pull me on to the ground with him. There he sank his teeth in to my gum boots. I was freaking out but also very aware of the fact that if I started to show how freaked out I was things would become exponentially worse.
“Give him your arm and get up slowly,” Steffen said. My instincts told me to scramble to my feet and fucking run but I did as I was told and tried to regain my feet. Rupi wasn’t keen on that. Maor and Steffen pulled him back and gave me the opportunity to get to my feet. I was breathing like I’d ran a marathon and my heart was thumping like the bass drum of a speed metal band. We went back on to the trails and prepared to continue the walk but as I joined Maor and Steffen, Rupi walked towards me again. In hindsight he wasn’t coming at me, I just happened to be standing next to the direction he was heading in, but having him come towards me again I backed away through instinct. This fired his instinct up and he jumped towards me again. Steffen and Maor held him back, Steffen telling me that backing away like that makes Rupi think you want to play.
We continued the walk without incident but it was a valuable lesson for me. Maybe Rupi didn’t have the instincts that Ru had but it didn’t mean he wasn’t much bigger, stronger and faster than me and in possession of a mean set of teeth and claws. He just wanted to play but a cat that size you don’t want to play with. From that moment on I was never to be complacent around Rupi again. He had scared me in to giving him the fear and respect he deserved – I’m just glad it had happened early on in the piece.
He jumped me a couple of other times but because I was more experienced and knew what to expect, these events were far less terrifying. It only happened a handful of times and usually only when he was excited by something unexpected or because it was raining. Jaime came out on one of Rupi’s trails unexpectedly one day and Rupi bounded over to him. Jaime is a Bolivian who came to the park in 2003 as a 13 year old and has known Rupi all Rupi’s life. So when Rupi saw his oldest, best friend he jumped Jaime, then he jumped Maor, then he jumped me. Jumping sees him leaping at you – generally at your hips – mouth open and paws out. It’s a pretty scary site but you just need to remember that he’s just looking to play. It’s usually as simply as keeping your feet, pushing him out of the way head first and saying in a very calm voice “no mas,” or, “tranquillo chico.” These usually did the trick.
The week before I started working with him however, he jumped Steffen in a way that left Steffen really shaken. It had started to rain very suddenly while they were out walking Rupi and soon he began pacing and getting very excited. Then, apparently out of nowhere, he jumped up and put his paws on Steffen’s shoulders. He’s been known to do this and usually all you need to do is pull away from him calmly, he drops down to the ground, give him your arm and say “no mas” and “tranquillo” to calm him down. But this time, paws on Steffen’s shoulders, he proceeded to open his mouth and put it around Steffen’s head. Steffen kept his cool and eventually Rupi backed off but, despite Rupi coming over to give Steffen an apologetic lick the next day, it left Steffen pretty rattled.
Not to get the wrong idea about Rupi, because a walk with him was 98% no worries. The motto for dealing with Rupi was “Rupi’s the Boss” and as long as you stuck to that, you were probably in for a good day. If Rupi wanted to go and sleep by the river for an hour, that’s what you did. If he wanted to have a second loop around the small loop before going back in to his cage, that was what you did. On one sunny day, Maor and I took Rupi out for what would end up being a six hour walk. Apparently that used to be the norm, though of late he had been going for two two-hour walks a day. It was a long day but if Rupi wanted to stay out, sleeping, walking and sniffing, that’s what you did.

The Monkeys

Parque Ambue Ari has, mainly due to its size, established itself as Inti Wara Yassi’s main cat park and, as a result, most of the monkeys go to the organization’s first park, Macchia. There are a few monkeys left in Ambue Ari, three that are in the park’s quarantine unit and three that have their own cage and park to play in. These three are howler monkeys. Two – Bittan and Chico – are males and the organization is hoping that they will be accepted and integrated in to one of the packs of wild howler monkeys that live in the park. However Talia is a ____ and will sadly always be kept in captivity. My first experience with these three monkeys was came out of the blue on my first day with Rupi.
Having finished lunch, I was heading out to see Ru (I was doing mornings with Rupi and afternoons with Ru for a few days but that changed to full days with Rupi) when a monkey popped out of the jungle on to the path. Having been jumped by Rupi for the first time that morning, I was a little on edge and this monkey scared the crap out of me. It turned out Steffen had found all three monkeys just off the path less than a minute before I arrived. Along with two other guys volunteering at the park, we walked the monkeys back to their cage where we found Arjan, an Indian guy who was looking after the monkeys.
“There you are,” he said to them.
We explained that we’d found them out on the path. Arjan said that he’d taken them to the monkey park that morning and that they’d wandered off. When he couldn’t find them he just went back to have lunch, leaving them out of their cage. Now this seems like a really bad idea and it is, but not for obvious reasons.
The monkeys know the way from their cage to the monkey park and getting them from one to the other is a pretty straight forward exercise. You simply clip Talia on to her lead, put her on your shoulder and the other two will follow. Once at the monkey park Talia’s lead comes off and she is free to wander the park and the trees around it freely. In my two afternoons spent with the monkeys, I didn’t even bother with Talia’s lead because she’s usually pretty well behaved. As long as you could keep an eye on them and put them back in their cage when you went back to camp, you didn’t really have a problem. I didn’t ever have one and enjoyed my time watching Bittan and Chico wrestle with each other while Talia curled up in my arms and occasionally scratched around and tasted my hair – both on my head and chest.
Where you did have a problem was if Talia ever came in contact with human females. I’m not entirely sure what happened to her, having heard conflicting stories, but she absolutely hated women. The story we were told early on in the piece to make sure the Boss stayed clear of the monkey park was that Talia scratched a woman’s face off. I’m fairly certain there was an element of hyperbole to that tale but there was no disputing that she hated girls. Furthermore, she was a big monkey – as tall as my thigh when she was standing – and very strong. So to leave her unsupervised and go back to lunch was a big mistake. It was lucky that the group of people who found her were all guys and especially lucky considering at least five girls would have walked along that exact same path not two minutes later on the way out to see their cats. The blasé way Talia was treated was bound to cause problems.
A few days before the Boss and I left the park a large influx of new people came. That was nothing new; I would have estimated a weekly turnover of at least ten people through the park. In this group was a Russian couple, Denis and Olga, and a new British girl named Jo. The deal at the park was that if you wanted to work with a cat you had to commit to staying for four weeks. The Russians were only staying for two, so Olga was assigned the house animals to work with and Denis the monkeys. Now Olga said she took a wrong turn (the reality of that being she would have needed to take a wrong turn, a two minute walk and ignore a sign saying something along the lines of no girls allowed) but she ended up in the monkeys’ cage. Talia saw her and lost it. Orr, the Israeli volunteer who had been working with the monkeys for almost two weeks at that stage, said Talia screamed and was foaming at the mouth before she jumped on Olga and started biting her leg. Olga managed to shake Talia off and ran back to camp and I guess that would have been that. But Talia followed her. Talia arrived at camp just as the other new girl, Jo, was getting back from visiting her jaguar for the first time. Talia screamed at Jo and Jo bolted.
Word spread through camp over lunch about what had happened but no official announcement was made. Marco, Zandro, Jaime and Oso (a few of the Bolivian guys who lived at the park permanently) went off to look for Talia along with Orr but couldn’t find her, so the day went on as usual. I couldn’t believe it. This monkey that attacked women at first sight was loose and rather than lock the camp down, send all the guys out to find her and keep the girls indoors until she was found, nothing was said and everyone went on about their day. When we left the parque a few days later Talia still hadn’t been found.

The Boss’s Animals

Juancho was the jaguar the Boss spent her mornings with for her last two and a bit weeks in the parque. Juancho had been an attraction in the Santa Cruz zoo, kept in a tiny cage and never given any exercise. Though this was awful, what eventually got him out of the zoo was someone taking a can of spray paint to his left eye. The animal cruelty was reported and Juancho was brought to Ambue Ari. He will always be blind out of the painted eye and it quite clearly causes him discomfort – on the two occasions I went out to see him he was scratching it a noticeable amount.
Due to his distrust and fear of humans they were not able to get a collar on him and so he cannot be walked because there’s nowhere to connect a lead for a runner to him. As a result, his days are spent in his cage. Though much larger than what he had at the zoo, it’s still a small cage and terribly sad to see this magnificent animal cooped up in such a small area. The Boss’s mornings with him were an attempt to keep him company and stave off the boredom for a little while. She would put him in his management cage, clean the poo out of his main cage and then try to decorate it with different branches and leaves, just to try and give his living space a bit of variety. Her favourite part of the day was feeding him when, occasionally, he would see the food, roll over on to his back and clap his front paws together. A rumour went around that this was what he had to do to get his food at the zoo so is actually cruel rather than sweet. I like to think that that is just a rumour and he claps because he’s happy – just like jaguars in the wild right?

The Sisters were assigned to the Boss on day one and she spent a whole month with them. Named Inti, Wara and Yassi, the sisters were pumas that were for sale on the black market as cubs but someone intervened and rather than being sold they were brought to to the parque and so have spent their lives in the company of humans. As a result, they may be the most affectionate cats I have ever come across – including domestic house cats! I used to walk past their cage on my way out to Ru’s cage and they would bound over to the fence and push their face up to the wire to try and get you to pat them and when you did they purred like no other cat you will ever hear. It was circular breathing purring – on the inhalation and exhale.
Inti was on a diet when the Boss started working with her because she was such a big girl. When the sisters were fed they would eat most of their food and leave the rest for later but for Wara and Yassi, later never came because Inti would eat their food. As a result she is now locked in to her management cage overnight if the other girls haven’t finished their food by the time they’re left for the day. The Boss liked Inti the best and reckoned she had the best cat instincts as she was a good tree climber and loved to stalk and hunt while she went out on walks.
Wara was the craftiest of the sisters, managing to escape from the cage a few months before we arrived. She spent three weeks on the run during which time she broke in to the pios enclosure, ate one and the scared another so badly it managed to escape. She made two more escape attempts while the Boss was with them. Wara was also on heat for three and a half weeks of the four we were there, which meant she was even more affectionate. She rubbed herself up against her volunteers and when they sat down she would rub her head against theres. The Boss also said Wara was inclined to spooning her when they would take walks together, the exact mechanics of which I wasn’t game to ask.
Yassi was the sister with which I had the most direct contact with. One Saturday while everyone was out I took the Boss out to meet Rupi and she took me to feed the sisters. Though I’d pet them through the fence, actually going in to their cage was pretty awesome. Having only worked with jaguars I was wary of the girls – were they going to jump me? Could I turn my back on them (you sure as shit can’t turn your back on a jag!) It turned out that they were great and Yassi in particular took a liking to me. She rolled over on her back and the Boss told me to put my hand near her face. When I did, she grabbed my hand between her paws and rubbed it all over her face, purring and making this strange noise – somewhere between a mew and a bark –Pumas make.
Overall the Boss was pretty stoked to work with three such hands-on cats. Though some days she would spend sitting on a jungle path in the pouring rain while one of the sisters lay next to her, for the most part they were good fun. And though every other volunteer who worked with the sisters got jumped by one of them at one time of another, not one of them ever jumped the Boss.

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Photos

Ru and Me
Having a swim in our birthday suits

Walking Rupi
First person view

Me and Rupi
Saying hello

Rupi
Rupi's tailoring service

Wara
Though God knows how she tells them apart

Talia
In a mood

The monkey express!
Talia, Bittan and Chico hitching a ride back to their cage

The boys
Me with Chico and Bittan

Talia and Chico
Giving him a bit of a grooming