Working Quarantine and House Animals

When I first started work, I was assigned to feeding the house animals from 9am to 12:30am and I had the cats in the afternoon. Usually, they give quarantine to people who are only going to work for 2 weeks, but we had a shortage of volunteers and so I was one of the people assigned. This entailed picking out the food for the animals, cutting it up and serving it. It's an easy job in general, but the animals can be difficult.

Feeding the pios or Bolivian ostriches in the morning is a blister rendering experience. The pios seem to be dumb animals who can only eat food that is cut up into tiny pieces because they don't chew, just swallow. There are 5 pios; nuns donated 4 of them when they could no longer care for them. I could spend a good hour just cutting up the food for the pios if working by myself. The knives are not great to use either and so I hated this part of the job. Then, bringing the food into their area is a potential blinding experience. The pios get so excited when food arrives that they start pecking at the bucket I bring in. Unfortunately, since I'm shorter than the pios, they tend to peck at me. I've tried putting the bucket on my head, but then they go for my head. For the most part, I push their long necks out of the way to keep them away. At night, a couple people always have to put the pios away into their houses since they do not have good eyesight and can hurt themselves running around. Two to three volunteers are then responsible for running around the pin to round up the pios into their houses. The biggest one has separate accomodations and the smaller 4 sleep in the same room. I've never had this job, probably because I'm shorter than the pios and they may just run me over. Although, I have had to let them out in the morning and dig up their crap on the floor to clean out their area. Unimaginable fun.

The worst part of the job is feeding the toucans and macaws. I've never been a bird person and I have a real aversion to birds that peck. The toucans have very long beaks and I enjoy throwing up pieces of banana for them to catch in their beaks. However, upon entering their cage every day, they like to peck at my boots. I don't enjoy this at all and quit feeding them after a couple days. I have to enlist the help of a local or have the other person working with me do it. The other birds I don't like to feed are the macaws. They are gigantic beautiful colorful birds. However, I think there are too many of them in one cage and they are angry about this and therefore constantly pecking at each other. One of them likes to hang out at the entrance of the cage and then attack whoever tries to enter. I can't go in alone and I actually prefer when I don't have to go in at all. I'm a horrible volunteer.

I do enjoy feeding Herbie, the tapir, and Bambi and Rudolfo, the deers. They live together and are quite cute and cuddly. Herbie's nose always twitches when I bring him food. Bambi only has one antler and a hurt foot. She has had a parasite and so is always starving and quite thin. They are lovely animals and I love just watching them eat and petting them.

I also feed Marocha, the spider monkey, and Faustino, the howler monkey in the mornings. Marocha is quite a curious one and is always getting into trouble. She loves to be the center of attention and will do anything to get it. When working in quarantine, Marocha came in every day to mess with the other monkey there. I had to remove her several times a day. She would jump onto my shoulders and be carried off. When jumping down off of my head, she always gave me a monkey tail burn. She would jump down while keeping her tail around my neck and then whip it off quickly when she hit ground.





Faustino, on the other hand, always seems depressed; maybe because he is in constant alcohol withdrawal. He prefers to just sit in the laps of women and be petted and cuddled. He even sleeps every night with Karen, one of the long-term volunteers. The most action I see from him is in the mornings and early evenings. He bellows out his howl and everyone joins in. I love howling with him and he seems to enjoy it too because he gets louder when we join in.


After a week of working with the house animals, they moved me to quarantine for my morning job. More short-term volunteers showed up and I think they knew that I didn't like birds or maybe I complained too much. Working in quarantine posed different problems though, but I never complained. In quarantine, a cappuchin monkey named Martina, a night owl monkey without a name, a tigrillo named Mariano and a bunch of birds reside there. Although we call it quarantine, many of the animals are not new and have been there for awhile. We just don't have an appropriate spot for them elsewhere.

Martina, the capucchin monkey is just like an undisciplined 3 yr old always demanding and getting what she wants. I believe that animals should never bite the hand that feeds them, but this theory apparently does not apply to her. I learned the hard way that she does not like to be around more than one person and she does not like anyone to touch the rope that is attached to her. I would have read the quarantine book that explained these nuances if someone could have found it. So, on one of my first days, while I was trying to untangle her rope while with another volunteer, she bit me. Now, this bite was not just a nibble, this was a “let's try to rip off the top of her finger” type of bite. She ripped off a few layers of the top of my finger and punctured the side of it. I had to go to the vet clinic and get disinfected, sprayed on with chemicals and wrapped up. At least she doesn't have rabies. Despite being bitten, she is quite affectionate on a one on one basis. I let her bond primarily with Amanda who worked all day in quarantine since I only worked mornings. But when alone with Martina, she would sit atop of my shoulders, remove my mosquito net and then pick through my hair for bugs. This is a natural tendency for monkeys. Her tongue would stick out and grab onto what she thought were bugs, but more likely my dandruff. I would then reciprocate and pick through her hair while she sat in my lap. I never found anything worthy of grabbing with my tongue, but pretended to take things out with my fingers. She even tried to feed Amanda random bits of things she deemed worthy of sharing. Amanda pretended to eat them, but Martina could tell she had not and insisted she eat more.



The other monkey is a night owl and he never leaves his dark cage. Although, I am sure he is more afraid of me, I am pretty afraid of him. He has big buggy eyes and stays in the dark of the cage. One day, I cleaned out his entire cage so I could put new branches in. However, he had nowhere to hide in his cage and started to freak out. I freaked out and had to get out of there. We later stuck some temporary branches in until we could find more to fill his cage. Sadly, he doesn't even have a name since no one can play with him and he can't leave his cage. So, I just put food inside and sweep it.

My favorite animal of the park is Mariano, the tigrillo. He is just like a domesticated cat, but with much sharper teeth. I would just hold him and let him suckle on my jacket like normal cats do when they are breast feeding or just happy and content. He purrs loudly and when I put him down to play, he would just jump back on my lap and suckle. When we do play, he attacks the rope I pull around and jumps around in his hay attacking invisible creatures. He only gets upset and growls at the chanchos, which I am often chasing out of quarantine on a daily basis. He also growls when he is eating his meat and doesn't want anyone to get near him.



One day, while taking him for a walk, I lost him. We never use to put a leash on him and he would naturally just follow us around. However, while sitting on the log, he decided to head off into the jungle. Amanda and I went searching for him and could not find him. I brought in a search of team of 5 people to help and to no avail. I later learned that this is the third time tha he has wandered off and not returned. I felt so bad for losing him and didn't want him to get eaten by the pigs. However, the next day, he showed up at the very spot where we had lost him. I was so happy to see him!

The next time I took him for a walk, we used a leash. However, when a chancho came up behind us, Mariano freaked out and wiggled out of his leash and ran off into the jungle again. Amanda and I went searching for him and found him thankfully. However, I think he hurt some nerve muscle and had trouble walking. When I left, his leg had gotten worse and he was just limping around. He seemed happy as usual and not in pain, but his leg maybe had no feeling. I must be the worst volunteer ever. Zandro is providing him with additional vitamins although, I'm not sure what else he could do, maybe realign his back?

The birds in quarantine do not scare me as those in house animals did. Plus, KP, another volunteer, showed me how to bond with birds and I have a new appreciation for them. She taught me to sing to them and talk to them so that their feathers fluff up to show that they are excited and happy. They never get any attention and appreciate whatever attention comes their way. One day though, I lost one of the Amazonian birds. I was in the process of cleaning out their cage and accidently dropped a large branch. This sent one of them flying out of the cage. He had some trouble flying, but made it into the trees. I could not get him down and so I left some food for him at the top of the cage. The other volunteers joked that I was trying to free all the animals. A couple days later, he showed up and Amanda was able to put him back into the cage. When he returned, the three birds in the cage could not stop yapping. The other two wanted to know what is was like out there and so they gossipped all day long. They are quite funny and I enjoyed their company greatly.


In another cage, suicidal bird tried to kill herself. Zandro had to wrap up her wing after she kept pecking at it. She lost her lover and has been depressed ever since. On my last day though, she looked much happier.