The latest news (14/02/2015 – 14/03/2015)

GENERAL INFORMATION

As the raining season is slowly coming to an end now, the weather is changing from gloomy and long rain showers to sunnier days week after week. This is not only bringing a smile to the face of the people at Esperanza Verde but also the animals seem to enjoy taking a sunbath during the day.

ANIMALS

 
• Monkeys

After a time of observation and deworming in a small cage, the new young male squirrel monkey Louie was transferred to a bigger cage outside. For the first time he could establish some contact with the other monkeys, which all were pretty curious about the new member of the family and spent a lot of time around his cage.

After 3 weeks Louie could be let out and could finally explore the outside world and join the other monkeys hanging around in the trees. The release went really well, Mica (our oldest female capuchin monkey) took care of Louie and carried him around on her back the whole day. In the evening Louie returned to his cage and spent the night inside. The next morning he was let out again and is since staying with either Mica or Camila, our female resident squirrel monkey.
The two tamarins Alessi (adult female) and Shambito (young male) were sleeping on and off in their cage at night. They started  to spend several days and nights outside in the jungle on their own.
At some point Alessi disappeared and didn’t return. One of the workers  spotted her in the jungle recently. She looked healthy and happy and did not want to follow him back home. For now she has been missing for more than a week. It might be she finally found a place in a wild group, as a volunteer noticed a second wild group while walking in the forest. Shambito was calling for her in the first day, but she never responded, and he now hangs out mainly with the woolly monkeys.

 
• Other mammals

After the passing away of Xena, the older female peccary Quintisha seems to get used again to being by herself again.
After some problems with vomiting, Rincay the tapir, seems as happy as always again and is enjoying life together with his old friend Pepito the tortoise.
Also Elmo (sloth) is doing fine and hanging around his sleeping box most of the days. If he’s around during feeding time the volunteers always enjoy feeding him a tasty carrot chip by hand.

 
• Birds

The parakeets which were able to fly and were brought to a release cage finally found the opening in the cage. At first one got out, and as he was staying on the cage, we put him inside again after several hours. Then at some point more went out, and they seemed to have found the trees in the surrounding, and maybe even some already joined the wild groups. There is a lot of fruit and seeds in the forest at the moment so it is a good time for them to get accustomed to living in the wild again.
The new parakeets (a group of originally 46) maintained their big appetite and seem pretty happy in their enclosure. Because most of them had their feathers cut on one wing it will take a lot more time till they will be able to fly again properly and hopefully eventually can be released. One died in the first days, and 3 are still under observation.

FOREST

The planting of all the last seedlings (1200) has finished now and a volunteer is going with Machico to take all the coordinates of their location to be able to put them into the databank. Like this we can easily find them again and check how the new trees are growing from time to time.

CONSTRUCTION

The construction of the new manager’s house is finally finished! Everyone has been very busy in the last few weeks with finishing last jobs, as painting the walls, attaching the mosquito wire, sandpapering, varnishing the wood etc. In the meantime the family has already started to pack their stuff and move all the things from their old rooms in the volunteer house to their new home. Many things need to get finished still, like shelves, some mosquito mesh for the windows, tables etc., but the family had to make room for volunteers, so decided to move in already.
To inaugurate their new house the family gave a dinner to which all the volunteers and also the workers together with their family were invited.
Now that the new house is finished, the work at the construction of the new clinic can be continued again with fresh motivation.

VOLUNTEERS

Life at Esperanza Verde is really busy, as new volunteers are arriving almost every week, which is not only exciting for the monkeys but also for all the volunteers and the family.
As always there are a lot of activities going on. The volunteers are enjoying their free time here with playing card games in the evening, fishing and bathing in the river and spotting wild animals and tasting jungle fruit on walks through the forest guided by Machico, one of the workers.
As one of the highlights the volunteers went together on a trip upstream to the big waterfall Regalia.
Last Friday a big party took place at the volunteers house. Before dinner all got ready for the party and dressed up nicely, the ladies even put on some makeup for once. There was good music, tasty cocktails, everyone chatted and danced until late in the evening and had a really fun time.