February 2023 Newsletter - Esperanza Verde

February 2023 Newsletter

We’ve welcomed volunteers from the UK, France, Sweden, Peru, Germany, Russia, Austria and Holland. All here for the animals at Esperanza Verde, accompanied by our beloved friend frequently visiting this month: the mosquito!

Animals

Moana, the youngest female woolly monkey is growing more independent each day. Now, she spends her days in an outside enclosure, bonding with the young female tamarin Sipra (and hopefully forgetting about us). Up next? Meeting the rest of the outside monkeys… we’re excited and nervous!  

As the rain season arrived, so did an opportunity for a lesser-known member of the resident family at EV – Mojita (female agouti). Heavy rain caused a big old’ tree to tumble down onto the fence of her enclosure, and an opening was created! Little did she know it led to another, empty, enclosure (PHEW). As she is very tame, she’d be an easy target for anyone. After some poking around, and tasty new snacks, she’d had enough of life on her own and joined the rest of the agoutis again; Doquino, Jope and Daikiri.

Ushari (young male night monkey) is making the most of his new mate Otis (male night monkey). Ushari is growing, and it was time for him to move from the family house to the clinic. Where he joins Otis, who is in for treatment. The fact that Ushari is half Otis’ size doesn’t seem to bother him at all, he can’t get enough of him. So far, the latter is very patient with this little creature, perhaps even happy to have someone to groom…

Ludo, (juvenile male kinkajou) now roams freely at night! He comes back in during the day, although not without having a climb on the windows in the early hours of the night. He’s staying away from humans and the ground, a mighty positive change as he arrived as a very tame pet.

SUST Animal Orphan Hospital

We don’t only care for animals from illegal wildlife trafficking, now and then the local wildlife also needs our help. Two rare (for us) species passed by our clinic: a wounded rainbow boa and what we believe to be a western amazonian dwarf porcupine. The poor boa had several puncture wounds in which we found over 50 maggots. We could also see its spine, it didn’t look good. The boa had a top-notch team looking after it, but it couldn’t be saved. The necropsy revealed parasites, which likely weakened it. This probably led to the attack, which ultimately killed it. Nature is a wild thing.

The porcupine was found with an open wound on its neck, most likely from falling (from heaven because it is very, very, very cute). We stitched it up and are keeping an eye on it in the clinic until it’s fully healed and ready to go back into the jungle!

Drago and Sayani (mealy parrot and orange-winged parrot) finally moved out of the clinic. Both struggled with foot problems for a long time, but now they’re healed! Sayani is a confident and marvellous flyer, even with just one eye, so she moved back into Pichu. As far as it goes for Drago, his flying still has room for improvement. He joined Daenerys (the mealy parrot known to so many of us) in the Igor enclosure. Daenerys seems happy with the company, as they’ve been quickly seen grooming each other. 

A volunteer spotted a big wound on Nando’s (white-fronted male capuchin) back. We caught him to treat him but kept him in our care for as short as possible. In the past, he’s been quite the menace towards humans, but lately, he’s been going off with the capuchin group. So we didn’t want to give him any reason to get close to us again. He’s doing well and getting taken care of by his new-found monkey friends. Yay! 

With several vets and interns among the volunteers, the clinic is buzzing! Our resident veterinarian Ligia got their help chipping a few of the yellow-footed tortoises in quarantine.

Construction

The new and much-needed Loki enclosure is coming along nicely! Olivia met with the financers of the Loki enclosure, an opportunity to say thank you face to face, a rare opportunity. This donation will drastically change the quality of life for several monkeys. We are so grateful to Kai and Jonas from Datasnipper– thank you once more.

Volunteer life

The mix of nationalities is making the communally cooked Friday night dinners full of flavour. Tips and insider tricks are being shared and swapped, and the beauty of connecting through food is shining bright. 

As a volunteer, you learn loads about wildlife and not just the feeding and cleaning bit! Join in on special treatments, become a caregiver and help raise young animals, and experience rehabilitating and releasing animals first-hand. We offer several options for staying with us, including internships. Email us with any questions you have, as we’d love to welcome you! 

Hastaluego!