 |
 |
It is 5:30 a.m., July 27, 1995. I am in the Petén Jungle, Guatemala, Central America. The animals of the ARCAS Rescue Center are announcing loudly that morning is here and they want to be fed. We four volunteers of the Rescue Center climb out of our bunks, throw on our clothes and shoes and head down the mountain from our sleeping quarters. We all meet at the clinic along with the Guatemalan men who live at the center. We decide who is going where and start on our morning chores.
Three of us head down to quarantine to take care of the babies brought in by CONAP ( an organization in Guatemala whose job is to stop the illegal trafficking of the wild animals, parrots and macaws). We have a bumper crop this year. They have brought us so far two baby jaguars, maybe a dozen baby spider monkeys, six baby howler monkeys, five baby kinkajous, five baby coatmundies, and 350 Amazon babies and some white-capped Pionus babies.
This article is going to center on the perils of the Amazons in the Petén Jungle and help at the ARCAS Rescue Center. The Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Association was created in 1989 by a multidisciplinary group of Guatemalan professionals concerned with the conditions of the wildlife resources in Guatemala. Their goal is to increase the chance for survival for the local wildlife. They also are heading the Scarlet Macaw Breeding and Reintroduction Program in the Petén Jungle.
| |
|
The babies come in daily, from naked little 2-3 day old babies to feathered but not yet fledged. They come in missing toes, eyes, tail feathers-sick, thin, hungry, and dying.
As we walk down the mountain to the quarantine center, we hear the 350 babies screaming for their breakfast. We all have our jobs to do. One gets the handfeeding formula mixed in a large stainless steel bucket. The handfeeding consists of a commercial formula from a company that has donated their product. If we don't have any commercial food, then we cook up a corn mash with oatmeal and vitamins added to feed the babies. Another volunteer starts cleaning the buckets that house the younger babies and also cleans the larger cages where the older babies are kept. The third person starts to get the medication ready for the sick and injured babies.
We finish with the necessary work by around 9:00 a.m. All the babies have been fed, cleaned, medicated, and had their showers, which are the highlight of their morning. Now we get to go have our breakfast. Then back down to the quarantine station to start working on the injured animals. There is a full-time veterinarian at ARCAS who donates his life to rehabilitating these animals and brings them back to health to finally be released back to freedom.
Our days are long at the center. We work 12-14 hour days in heat of 100-120 degrees F with unbelievable humidity. We deal with spiders, large bugs, poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, and foxes, all of which are looking for a free meal.
| Can you imagine watching your parents being murdered, being ripped from your nest at two or three days old, and going through frightening and horrible days and nights stuffed in a small box with lots of other babies. It's hot and you're without food and water. You're thrown on top of a bus, bouncing about on dirt roads for days. Finally, someone takes you off the bus, out of the hot box, and takes you to the ARCAS Rescue Center. Nothing is familiar. You're stressed and still scared of everything. Then you start to get food and water on a regular basis, along with baths every day. You start to feel better. Your injuries are being treated and you're receiving medication. You start to grow and develop feathers. You feel like maybe you could fly. You go to a huge flight where you meet other birds of your own kind. You learn to fly, learn to eat your kind of food, and you can hear the calls of the wild parrots in the jungle. You yearn to be free, but nobody ever comes to let you out. You're ready to join a flock and become a member of a family. When will this happen? |
Despite all the horrible injustices such as hunger, sickness, and missing limbs done to the Amazon babies by the poachers, approximately 85- of theses babies survive this ordeal successfully to be released. The ARCAS Rescue Center is an oasis for these babies. Without the center, the babies would have nowhere to go for help and love.
Within a few weeks, the Amazon and Pionus babies leave quarantine and are transferred up the mountain to the main center where there are huge flights. Here they learn to fly, form a social group, and start to eat all the natural foods that they will feed on in the canopy of the jungle.
Now come the problems. The ARCAS Rescue Center is a non-profit organization. They depend strictly on private donations to feed the birds, to house them, the pay the veterinarian and a nutritionist. The nutritionist goes into the jungle daily to acquire the fruits and berries that are in season for the Amazons to eat.
Another problem is that CONAP and the Guatemalan government have set up such strict regulations on releasing the Amazons, that consequently many are not being released at a young age. They require an full set of blood tests and exam on each Amazon before its release. This costs money, lots of MONEY. Right now, with 350 parrots, it is going to cost approximately $5,000 US dollars to do the necessary testing. ARCAS does not have that kind of money. The Amazons end up living in these huge flights many times up to years before being released. THIS HAS TO STOP!
The Amazon babies need to be released when they are young and can join a flock to learn from the older Amazons about their environment. The longer they stay at the center, the more they become imprinted on humans, depend on humans to feed them, and the less they are able to adjust to their jungle environment.
We still have a stable population of wild flocks of Amazon species in the Petén Jungle. This is obvious with the increase of babies at the Rescue Center this year. In the evening, I can stand by the river and watch flocks of Guatemalan Blue Crowns (Mealy), Red-Loreds, White-Fronteds, Lilac Crowned, and Pionus parrots coming in to roost for the night.
On the down side, we have lots of Amazon babies leaving the country illegally. CONAP is doing its best to stop this, but they will not support the cost of releasing these Amazons (we have). That responsibility is left to the ARCAS Rescue Center.
I appeal to the Amazon lovers in the U.S. that we need your understanding and compassion of the wild Amazon for their independence and freedom that they so desperately need to survive!
These beautiful wild Amazons deserve better. They start life full of fear and stress. The least we can do is help to give these birds a way out of the huge flights. A donation of any amount will be sent or carried personally by me back to the Petén Jungle to do the blood work ad the exams. My commitment is to free the Amazon babies to the Petén Jungle. Will you help me? Let's show the Guatemalan government and CONAP that the American people do care about Amazons, wild or tame.
Your donations will be greatly appreciated. Make checks payable to Columbus Zoo/ARCAS and in the memo section, write Amazon Release Project, and mail to:
