Before I left for my trip I came across Parque Ambue Ari online. I was looking for some volunteer opportunities working with wild animals. Parque Ambue Ari is part of the organization Inti Wara Yassi, and is a rescue and rehabilitation center for wild animals. Most animals were intercepted while in trade as exoctic pets, circus animals, or rescued from abusive situations.
The focus at Parque Ambue Ari is big cats. Currently they have about 25 cats - jaguars, pumas, and ocelots - as well as monkeys, birds, and an assortment of other animals. I arrived during low season and when the park was in desperate need of volunteers. As a result I got to work with 2 cats, and ocelot named OB and a puma named Neko.
In the mornings we'd wake up about 6:45 and start work at 7am. We had weekly task such as feeding the birds and daily tasks such as cleaning the bathrooms or setting up breakfast. These tasks rotated among the volunteers and were essential to keeping the camp running smoothly. Breakfast was at 8am and we'd start work with our cats at 9am. In the mornings I worked with OB. OB is an ocelot, which looks a bit like a house cat, though a bit bigger and with markings similar to a leopard or jaguar.
OB is an interesting little cat. She came with 2 other ocelots a few years ago, and due to an agreement with the zoo they came from she will unfortunately never return to the wild. The time spent with her was to get her out of the cage for awhile and to give her some excercise each day. With alot of the cats we walk them with collars and leashes, just like dogs. It took me almost 2 weeks to figure her out. Ocelots are notoriously unpredictable, and OB was no exception. The first few days she was fairly affectionate, coming up to me to rub her face on me, or wanting to sit on my lap. However sitting on the lap quickly turns into a full attack with her, so I stopped letting her do that. In the beginning she wasn't walking much, just maybe 20 to 30 feet from her cage, then she'd want to lay down or return to her cage. I realized that the person who worked with OB before me was really letting her do whatever she wanted and never pushed her at all. She is a chubby little cat and needs more excercise. I started not letting her return to the cage until I was ready for her to. All you had to do was stand your ground as she tried to pull on the leash to return back. After a few moments she'd give in and keep walking. Eventually I was able to direct her to certain directions/paths with this tactic. She had a runner (a long peice of rope run horizontally through an open stretch of land) that you could attach her to so she could wander around a bit without you holding the leash. The volunteer before me never used it, but I started her on a routine of starting and finishing each day on the runner. While she was there I would clean her cage up. Then we'd walk, then we'd play, then I'd feed her.
I had a hard time with OB after the first couple of days. My 3rd and 4th days with her she kept coming at me, trying to jump on me and bite my knees. She is small, but strong and it wasn't very fun. She never really did that again, but was less affection with me after that and would try to bite me when I was putting on and taking off the leash. Around the end of the 2nd week we kind of fell into a groove. I think routine is really important for her, and she was starting to understand that I wanted her to walk more and we weren't going to go back to the cage or play until she'd finished her walk. She started to be more affectionate again, and I finally felt a nice bond with her.
Of course, I was only staying 3 weeks so right when I felt like we were connecting I had to leave. I feel a bit bad about that, but was really happy with the girl who was replacing me and knew that OB was in good hands. Here's OB:
Enjoying the sunshine while out on her runner
Play time!
My afternoons were spent with Niko. Niko is a puma with a bit of a sad story. She came when really young and at first was doing really well. However when she was out for a walk she was chased by a bunch of chanchos(wild pigs) and ran up a tree. She fell out of the tree and broke her back leg. The leg was not healing properly so she was sent to a vet in Santa Cruz. There she was mistreated and traumatized by the healing process. They do things like keep a bucket on their head to keep them from tearing off their bandages and have people lying on top of her for hours so she won't move while the leg was healing. I guess this is fairly standard, but she was mistreated as well, and became extremely distrustful of people after this.
At this point she is not being walked because no one can easliy get a leash on her and get her out of the cage. A volunteer got her on a leash and out onto her runner, but it took her about 2 1/2 month sof working with her, and it only happened once.
I was put with Niko because they are trying to get her used to more people and to get more comfortable more quickly with new people. The volunteer who worked with her before me (same as with OB) was with her for 3 weeks and never got closer than 6 feet from Niko. I had to gain Niko's trust, and I read the entries in her book from the people that knew her really well. They said that she would never attack you - her response is always to flee. I was nervous, but knew that for her to trust me I would have to show that I trusted her. When I first met her she would just pace and pace at the edge of the cage (I was in the middle), panting and clearly stressed out. To get her to trust me I had to at first let it be on her terms. I laid down in the middle of the cage for a couple of hours. I did this for 2 days. She began to calm down and make circles around me, getting slowly closer, even coming up and sniffing me a few times. At the end of the 2nd day, I sat up and let her continue to circle me. On the 3rd day I sat in the middle of the cage and she was starting to get closer, but never closer than 5 or 6 feet away. There was a toy laying on the ground - a stuffed animal on a rope - I picked it up and she stopped in her tracks, made a chirping sound and came directly to me - directly to my face and sniffed me. All the while I was making encouraging sounds, phrases. The next time she came by she walked directly to me again and rubbed her face on my face. After that point she decided I was ok, and would purr and purr as she walked by, often rubbing her face on mine.
As days went by the affection sessions would get longer, eventually she would even stand on my lap and lay her head on my shoulder for a few minutes. She was so sweet and I feel completely head over heels. She so clearly loves people, and wants to trust you but was just so very scared. I worked on gettingher to trust me and approach me when I was standing, and also began to approach her. We'd also play football (soccer). I'd kick the ball, she would chase it and pat it around. We didn't get really any farther than this with the 3 weeks time, but it was a vast improvment over the last volunteer. I really enjoyed my time with Niko and felt like she really needed me. I think about returning to the park to try to work with her again at some point. Here are some pics and a video of Neko:
Here are some more pics of the park and some other animals:
This is Moracha - one of the spider monkeys that lived at camp. She'd wake us up every morning around 5am by forcebly entering our dorm room to come cuddle with someone.
Baton - a baby howler monkey who also lived at camp, getting some help from Agri at the water fountain. The camp was also home to 4 Bolivian teens, who had much less-than-desirable living situations at their homes. The lived and worked at the camp amd the staff made sure that they went to and finished school.
Chancho cuddle pile - there were many of these pigs that lived around the camp, including a baby one - Schmelda - who all the volunteers fell in love with.
Some pictures of camp. I had a bit of a difficult time at camp because I was there during the rainy season. I'd like to think that I'm hard core, but I'm just not. We had no electricity, it rained constantly so our clothes never dried, I was in a 10 person dorm with littl elight and much stank, I had to walk an hour a day through waist-deep water to get to and from OB's cage (the last pic), I got foot fungus from my constantly wet feet, and had hundreds of mosquito bites as well. All of this combined was just too much for me and I left about 1/2 a week before I had planned. That being said - I would go back. Just not during this time of year.
When I arrived there were about 16 volunteers. The highest when I was there was about 30. I hear that now there are 60 volunteers there. The camp takes about 40 to properly function and to allow the cats to have full days with volunteers, rather than the half days we were doing. Here are some pics from a night out we had where we were to make clothes out of anything but actual clothes. We'd head to Santa Maria, and littl etown about 8k away. It had electricity and booze and chocolate. All the things we craved at the park.
I am really happy I made the time/effort to head to Parque Ambue Ari. If anyone wants more info about the park or wants to make a donation here's a link:
http://www.intiwarayassi.org/articles/volunteer_animal_refuge/home.html
