One day I took a bike and visited the Jaguar Rescue Center. The story of the center is interesting; An Italian woman and a Spanish man worked in the same Zoo in Spain, but did not know each other. Then the Zoo arranged a tour to Costa Rica where they got to know each other, fell in love with each other and with Costa Rica. They bought a house and soon people learned that they had worked in a zoo, so someone brought a baby jaguar to them. The jaguar died, but people continued to bring them animals, and so they had the idea of opening up a center, and have volunteers working there. They also opened up for the public so that they could have an income since the goverment is not funding the center. They have a variety of animals, but no jaguars, but the center was named after the first animal they had. You get a tour from a volunteer when you go there, so you will learn a lot about the animals. One monkey was f.ex. found clinging on the road to his dead mother. He was clinging to her for 2 days before someone brought him to the center. Most of the monkeys have similar stories, they are orphans because the mother has been killed on the road or by a fire. The sloths come in because they are electrocuted by the many power lines that are hanging near trees. They try to get from one tree to another, and touch the power lines. it is very traumatizing for sloths, they have a slow metabolism and are very sensible to outer disturbance. Because they live a slow and solitary life, they are easily stressed by human activity and can easily develop skin infections. Some animals are confiscated from people that attempt to smuggle the animals out of Costa Rica. The margay cat (also called the climber cat because they are the best climbers among cats) in the park came there because of this reason. It was a good thing that he was saved because he was held in the trunk of a car and fed coffe and bread!!! Can you imagine that!? When Develino came to the park, he was so weak and undernourished that they were afraid he would die. Little is known about this little jungle cat, it is nocturnal and solitary and like to roam the remote areas of the rainforest. It is on the list of near threatened animals. Margays spend their entire life in trees, they even hunt in the trees, whereas its larger relative, the ocelot, mostly hunts on the ground. The margays hunst monkeys and birds in the treetops, skillfully because of an ankle flexibility that enables them to climb down a tree head-first. Its ankles can turn 180 degrees, and it can grab on to the tree equally well with the fore and hind paws. It can jump almost 4 meters. Develinos decire to hunt and kill is kept alive by giving him live prey, and he has to climb, leap and sneak to get it. The woman (Anca) that runs the park has taken him to the jungle many times to release him, he follows her on the trail, she leaves him, but 3-4 days after he comes knocking on Ancas door. They hope that he will be ready to leave when its time for him to get a girlfriend. The orphan monkeys in the park they take to a 'monkey park' in the jungle where they meet wild troops, when they are ready to leave the safety of the shelter, they will be adopted into one of the wild troops. It has been a very successful method, one female that was adopted into a troop brought her whole troop to visit Anca a year after she found a troop, and she was pregnant.
This is a baby two fingered sloth, it lost its mum. It was very hyper, climbing around all the time, not what we would think a sloth would do.
These are baby opossums. Opossums are usually solitary and nomadic, staying in one area as long as food and water are easily available. Some families will group together in ready-made burrows or even under houses. Though they will temporarily occupy abandoned burrows, they do not dig or put much effort into building their own. As nocturnal animals, they favor dark, secure areas. These areas may be below ground or above. When they are threatened or harmed, they will "play possum", meaning that they mimic the smell and appearance of a sick or dead animal. In the movie
Ice Age there are a couple of opossums, they play dead and hang from the trees by their feet.
A grown up three fingered sloth who came to the park because it touched an electric wire. Even though they are quite docile they are able to defend themselves when they are in their environment; the trees. Their claws are powerful (remember they hang all day by their claws), and they can bite as well. They are most vulnerable on the ground, so they spend as little time as possible on the ground. They go to the toilet only once or twice a week, then they have to climb down to the ground.
This deer was brought in by a hunter that shot the mother right after giving birth to her. She was still wet from her birth. She can never go back to the wild because she has no fear of humans as she has grown up with humans. She thinks she is a dog according to the volunteers. The park also get predatory birds. Their main injuries come from humans littering along the streets. When people throw garbage by the road it attracts a lot of rats and mice. Predatory birds like falcons, eagles and spectacle owls are attracted to the abundance of rats and mice, and they hunt by night. When they hunt in the night they get hit by cars, and get their wings crippled, or they die. Snakes and amphibians are bred in the park, and you may wonder why someone would breed dangerous snakes that can kill people and frogs... Amphibians, because they have the special skin that allows them to take oxygen through it and live both in water and on land are very vulnerable to all the chemicals we dispose of in the nature.
Think about this; when all the predatory animals we like and those we do not like are gone what will happen? Most places have huge problems with rats and cockroaches. When we do not protect the snakes, predatory birds and small and jungle cats the problem is going to grow even more. Anca has a boa constrictor in her house, to control rats, mice and cockroaches. Because even if you do not see them, they are there, and they are many. If we do not take care of our amphibians, spiders and birds we will drown in insects and cockroaches. ALL the creatures put on this planet have a wonderful purpose of keeping everything in perfect balance. If you love the nature and animals, you can not hate any animals, not even the shark or spiders. Only humans have no purpose at all as long as we treat our planet as if it is worthless. Along with our pets and farm animals we are on the brink of destroying all life on earth and the earth itself. Pets, like cats and dogs, have managed to vipe out species of birds and animals. And to feed farm animals huge areas of virgin forests and jungles are destroyed every day, chasing away and pressuring the animals that used to have the area as their home. Think twice about your actions on mother Earth, treat yourself better by not filling your body with chemicals. How can we care about pollution on the planet when we so willingly pollute ourselves every day? Do you want to breath toxins every day? Drink water and eat food that is contaminated with chemicals? Use body products with chemicals. The medical world try to tell us that we get sick because of our gens. That we get fat because of gens. That is NOT true ladies and gentlemen. The truth is that it is natural to be healthy and live a life of high quality, and we get sick because of the food and water we consume, and the air we breath. I believe there exist NO bacteria and viruses that are older than the human race that was a ever a natural or catastrophic threat to mankind.
