Esperanza Verde Update / 16.08.16 – 23.09.16

Rain season is slowly arriving and the jungle is once again starting to look like the lush forest it is supposed to be. We have welcomed the arrival of two new baby wooly monkeys, a baby sloth, a capuchin and not less than five baby parakeets! And even though at the time writing the volunteer crew is not in its full power, we have got a strong group of eight people while we await new ones to arrive.

Monkeys

Panchita (female capuchin monkey)

Panchita is 4 to 5 years old (a bit younger than Mica). She was handed over to the ministry by her owner who had kept her as a pet. She was first a he and was called Pansho by her former owner. Coming here we soon discovered this was not the case, therefore we renamed her.

Panchita spent her quarantine time in the clinic and was in the beginning quite alone with no visits from other capuchins but eventually our older male Jordi has been seen by her cage. She has now been moved to Igor cage outside where we hope she will create a connection with more of the other capuchins. Having older individuals become a part of an already functioning group is sometimes hard, but we are hoping that the visits from Jordi are a positive sign and that she will be accepted. Let’s hope she does not find our kitchen more interesting.

Samara & Pashko (baby female and male woolly monkeys)

They both arrived together with the two-toed sloth Lulu from the ministry. They were held in the clinic here at Esperanza Verde during their quarantine period but have now moved to a cage outside and are daily visited by our older male wooly monkeys Kamari & Willow among others. In the coming weeks we will open the door and see how they will do outside.

Chiquita & Lupa (baby female woolly monkeys), Khali & Cinty (baby male and female capuchin monkeys)

Our other baby monkeys are starting to grow up! They are still being fed milk and food from a plate but all of them are also enjoying the feast at the monkey tables, even Khali!. Cinty one day was discovered with a cut on her forearm and limping so she got checked by Olivia (‘her best friend’) and Douwe and deemed good enough to take care of it herself, which she has and we can now see her wound healing back.

Sira (female night-monkey)

Sira is more and more enjoying life outside the cage as we now encourage her to play more with the other monkeys and stay out longer. Still on occasion she sits on volunteer’s heads but their determination to not let her has helped and she is now much more eager to be in the trees. A volunteer has been working on a box that has gotten introduced to her inside of her cage. The thought is that this box will be her sleeping box during the day when she is released outside.

Other Mammals

Soraya

With all the stuff going on and the family away we have forgotten to mention one of the special arrivals in the last month, a young female prehensile-tailed porcupine, Soraya. She was found by a local on the beach while a bird of prey was trying to take her away. He handed her to us. She arrived with a lame right hind leg with no outside injury seeable. We treated her and hoped, and it worked, although it took some weeks, but she started climbing again. We could move her after about 4 weeks to a bigger cage for more exercise and after some weeks she was using her leg like normal again. She now has a good chance of release as soon as has grown a bit more and has adapted well to the surroundings.

Baby two-toed Hoffman sloth (Lulu)

Lulu was brought to us by the ministry together with the two baby wooly monkeys Samara & Pashko. She is still being fed milk by the bottle and volunteers take her at least twice a day on leaf walks, that way she can decide herself which leafs she enjoys!

Coatis (Male Vasari & females Nola and Chuni)

The coati babies who had a mother that was most likely killed by a local dog are growing bigger and bigger every day! They are starting to eat more solid food and are quite enjoying the variety of food they are being offered since we want to find out what they like. We are soon hoping to put them in an outside cage where they can socialize more with the other coatis and become a part of the group.

Kinkajous (male Kiko & female Kila)

Kiko who earlier this year was attacked by a wild male kinkajou and who we feared would never be able to use his left eye again, got back in his cage to heal. During his healing he got introduced to Kila who was brought in from the village. Everyone is now happy to see that Kiko is able to use his eye and he is getting along well with Kila.

About a week ago we opened the hatch to their cage and they both happily went up in the trees. Kila has been seen by Olivia and Douwe a few days after and Kiko has been found sleeping in his old box on one occasion. He is regularly spotted over at the house of Douwe and Olivia.

Birds

Baby cobalt-winged parakeets

Five baby-parakeets, so far nameless, so if you have suggestions let us know! They all arrived from the Ministry, on the same day as capuchin Panchita. Two volunteers who were spending some days in Pucallpa picked them up. They are at the moment in the clinic, and at first received very intensive feeding, being syringe fed every 2-3 hours. But within two weeks they already started to climb out of the home-made nest and now they are in a bigger cage, with two of the five already starting to fly. Everybody involved, and there were and are many, did a great job! We hope that they will start eating more solids food in the near future and hopefully we can introduce them with the other birds.

Rosalinda, a swallow-wing

One day a young girl came to Kayla to ask her to take care of a little black bird, as her brother wanted to steel it to go fishing with it as bait. This is the story of how Rosalinda, a young swallow-wing arrived in Esperanza Verde. She was a pet for at least a week and very tame. She eats well, and we have introduced the daily task again of catching grasshoppers or crickets for her. She is residing in a small cage in the office in the clinic for now.

Mealy Amazon parrot (Rhaegar)

Rhaegar was handed over to us by a local from Curimana who kept him as a pet. After the initial quarantine period, and some necessary baths (he was kept in a hardware store, so a bit oily!), he was put into Igor cage together with our other Mealy Amazon Daenarys. They soon became friends and got moved to the aviary where Daenarys had stayed before Igor cage. In the beginning Rheagar got picked on by the other amazons (especially some of the orange-winged parrots) and macaws that also reside within the aviary, but he seems to gain his respect and his doing better and better. He is very talkative and likes to chat with volunteers passing by the aviary!

Shakalaka (Speckled chachalaca)

Shakalaka is her name, and even though she does not look much she is a brave little bird! After a long time being enclosed in the cage next to the volunteer house, she was released during the day for a few hours under the watchful eyes of a volunteer. All went well and we decided to leave her outside for longer on her own and see how it goes. It all went well. She has recently been seen more and more on the monkey tables and has become much more independent. It was decided that she no longer needed to stay in her cage during night so she now roams around freely. She does still stay close and like to follow volunteers around, during the evening she can be heard communicating with other chachalaca in the nearby area.

Pauki (Russet/backed oropendola)

Pauki, our ‘house’ bird so far always showed up around 5pm at the volunteer house, but he seems to have been doing a disappearance act again. Last time he was not seen for two weeks, let see now. We just hope he is doing well, and maybe he finally found a mate among the many wild oropendolas around.

Construction

New Cage for spidermonkeys

Douwe, with help of the local workers Geiler, Machiko and Gomishu, is finishing the last interior details of the spidermonkey cage so we hope we can move them soon and see how they like the new settings. Just to make sure we had the inside toys tested by some of the volunteers! It can be hard work, but there is a lot of fun in between and acting like monkeys is one of them!

Zambo Cage

New plans are being made again, as necessity always shows us the way. A new area is being cleared up behind the clinic where a cage for our tayra, Zambo, is going to be constructed. The place is further away from the rest of the centre as we don’t want him to comfortable to the direct surrounding of the centre. The cage will be built of strong material so it can be used in the future for other animals as well, which are potentially dangerous for other animals in the centre. The cage will have Zambo’s name, as he will be the first inhabitant. He is ready to go to a bigger space, and move finally out of the clinic. It has been a long and difficult way for him but he has grown into a beautiful young adult tayra, a not so easy one to handly in times!

Volunteers

We all said goodbye to Lauren and Iain, everyone has been really grateful for their help and the knowledge they brought to everyone. They also cooked some bomb pineapple-sweet-chili sauce pasta and brought a lot of laughter in the evenings!

Since then we have had a smaller group of volunteers for a few weeks but that means we are becoming a well worked in group with a mix of long term volunteers and people staying for two-three months. We all enjoy rainy season beginning (which also means mango season is arriving) and being able to wash dishes in the sink again.

We would never be able to run this project without the help from our volunteers and other supporters. Big thanks to everyone who has helped out!