I'm finally back home from our latest trip to the Playa de Oro Margay
reserve in Ecuador. What an adventure this one was! Rosa Jordan who
initiated the start of this reserve went along with us to the reserve,
but first we went on a side trip to the other side of the country where
we went to a large local market and worked with the police to confiscate animals that were for sale illegally. Basically, the way this worked, is that the police would not just arrest someone or confiscate an animal because it was in their booth. Rather, the police wanted to catch the person in the act of selling the animal. So our job was to go around and negotiate to buy an animal while the police tried to hide and watch from nearby. When they saw money exchange hands, they approached and confiscated the animal and handed out tickets. I am not sure what the punishment was, or if there was any to the sellers, other than loosing their merchandise.
After the police confiscated the animals, they would
hand over the confiscated animals to one of us in our party that waited
elsewhere. The point of this is that there were some very sick animals
in this market that needed help, and some were endangered species, and
while we could just walk up and buy them, the act of just flat buying
the animals only encourages the sellers to keep supplying animals to
sell in the market. But if the animals are taken away by the police, and no money is made off them, then this might discourage the seller to stop obtaining animals to sell in the future. The police do not actively confiscate animals like this, because in most cases, they have no where or no one to care for the animals if they do. So they were very willing to do this "sting operation", if we were willing to take responsibility for the animal's care and placement. In just a few hours, we had a total of 26 animals, of which 6 of them were endangered species. One of the ladies with us was the main funder of a primate reserve that Rosa helped establish just last year, so we ended up with quite a few different species of primates. This is also how we came to get the 3 week old ocelot kitten that we dubbed "Little Chief". (Negotiated price: $40) The rest of the animals were parrots, turtles, and some small marmosets.

Now the hard part was making all kinds of makeshift cages for all these
animals until we could transport them to proper facilities. Some of the
animals were very sickly, so we needed to administer health care to many of them right away. We had a cabana of our own with 3 different rooms and a porch of our own, so we were able to spread all the animals out and keep animals separate from ones they had not previously been exposed to at the market. Thank goodness for the traveling vet care pack that Lisa sent me, we had the basics to help get these animals on their feet until they went to their new homes. Plus she sent kitten formula and bottles so I had enough kitten formula to last the ocelot until we got to Playa de Oro.
Over the next few days, we traveled around to various
places and placed the animals out. Most of the primates and parrots went to the Cushi Primate Reserve that was about 3 hours upriver, where they will be released once they are healthy. A couple of healthy primates and the turtles went to a private animal garden there in town. And of course, the ocelot kitten was traveling with us to Playa de Oro.

Little Chief was so young and fragile. He had not developed any teeth
yet, was not peeing-pooping on his own yet, and wanted a bottle around
the clock about every 3-4 hours, had runny poops, had a rattling in his
chest, and was obviously very dehydrated when we received him. We had a
little bit of a fuss getting him started on a bottle, but he was hungry
enough that he figured it out shortly. The lady he came from stated
that his mother had been killed and that he was an orphan and she had
him for the last 8 days. We really don't know if that is true or not,
we'll never know. What I do know is this kitten was completely tame. I
never once saw him hiss at a person, and this is not how a kitten just
pulled off Mom would react. Even kittens pulled off a tame mother at 10
days will hiss at first at their new human mom. So this was a puzzle to
me...how long had they had him in captivity? Was he stolen off a captive mother ocelot? Or were his mother killed and he stolen from her? We'll never have solid answers to this, but he is the sweetest little thing, no fear of humans, and just loves everyone. He does have that bossy attitude that ocelots have, he could be demanding when it came time to eat or when he needed something. This is how he came to be named Little Chief, because he was sure bossing me around...feed me now! I need to pee! Play with me! Hold me! Snuggle me! Keep me warm! Feed me again! And so on....

When we returned to Quito, it was quite chilly, being high up in the
mountains and rainy. Cold and wet. So for a couple of days while we got
ready to go to Playa de Oro, Little Chief resided inside my shirt and
sports bra to keep him warm. Since he was so young, he was sleeping a
lot anyway, so this seemed fine with him. Every once in a while when he
wanted to see what was going on, he would pop his head out of the neck
of my shirt to look around, which would send the hotel staff into fits
of laughter and other hotel guests would have quizzical looks on their
faces. I'll post more info about Little Chief specifically later.

We picked up two additional travelers to go with us to the reserve when
we were in Quito, so we now had the maximum number of people that we
could take to the reserve. One lady was from Florida, and the other was
a young man from Ireland. I spent the week at Playa de Oro teaching the
staff how to care for a kitten. We decided to go ahead and wean him off
the bottle and milk formula, since the staff is not experienced with
bottle-feeding animals. They had a manual meat grinder, so I showed them how to grind the meat up into mush, add calcium / phosphorus powder and taurine powder to the meat, put a little kitten formula on it, so that Little Chief would be able to eat it. It took just a few tries, and he was eating it up like a pro. I showed them how to gradually make the meat grinds larger for him as he grows, until he is big enough to eat bigger pieces of meat and bone. The calcium and taurine vitamins were donated to FCF by Pet Ag at our convention this summer, so I was glad that we had it on hand, because this little guy definitely needed it on his new diet!

Another project we worked on was the camera traps. I returned the 3
cameras we had to make repairs on. The camera company suggested that we
stick tampons down inside the camera case housing to absorb the humidity inside the casing that was breaking down the film emulsifier. They said several researchers in the Belize area came up with this idea, and it had been working very well. I had hoped that Mauro, the reserve director, would not know what tampons where, because they are pretty funny about male-female type stuff there. Alas, he did know what they were, and after he got over his fits of laughter, it took quite a bit of coaxing to get him to even touch a tampon to stick it down into the camera housing.

The really big news about the camera trap project, is that right before
I left for the trip, FCF had been awarded a grant by the Cincinnati Zoo
to buy new digital camera traps. I did not even have time to announce it before I left. I had to have the new cameras overnighted to me, and did not even have time to open the boxes and try out the new cameras, I just shoved the boxes into my luggage, and left out early that next morning.
The Cincinnati Zoo awarded FCF with $1950 to purchase 3 new digital
camera traps that will remain at the Playa de Oro reserve. FCF used
member donation funds to purchase needed supplies for the cameras such
as extra memory cards, extra batteries, etc. So the funds raised for our art print raffle this summer came in handy to supplement the camera
expenses. What is nice about the digital cameras, is that we will not
have to buy film, develop film, and buy supplies of batteries for the
new cameras. The batteries that the cameras run off of are lead acid gel rechargeable system batteries. So even though the cameras and supplies are expensive to start off with, there will be virtually no further expenses to keep these cameras in operation. All we have to do now, is that the reserve will mail the memory cards back and forth to me, and I will download the pics directly to my computer. It is so great that a zoo is willing to back our project, it really lends the work some credibility! This grant was applied for by one of the Cincinnati Zoo cat keepers, Laura Carpenter, for us and she really pushed for it, so we owe her a huge thank you! Since we had new cameras, I had to spend some time learning how to operate them myself, and then train Mauro on how to use them. Since they have the solar panel, he will be able to charge the batteries there with the solar panel. The one remaining camera that I left in July was no longer functioning, so I brought it home for repairs. All together we have a total of 7 cameras now for the project, the 4 cameras on loan from Conservation International and the 3 new digitals.

One of the trip members donated a satellite phone to the reserve and
taught them how to use it, and also will pay the bill. So we now have
telephone service at the reserve! (At the cost of $5 per minute, but
hey, emergencies have no price tag, right?) The phone also has a modem
on it, and once the reserve gets set up with a computer, they will be
able to email from the reserve, as well as download the photos from the
digital camera traps themselves.

The $1000 that FCF donated from our general fund was combined with
another $1000 from Earthways, and $1000 from Rosa's daughter Jona, to
start replacing the lodge's badly deteriorated roof. This was a much
needed repair that has just financially been out of their reach until
now. There were many more chicken coops built since our last trip in
July. Lots of clothing, shoes, and other supplies were brought by our
trip members, and these items were offered only to those families with
the best chicken coops for their cooperation and support of the reserve.

We also initiated a rescue of 2 ocelots in another town before we left.
Mauro came across 2 ocelots being held for their pelts just a few weeks
before we arrived at the reserve. He has been working on getting the
ocelots away from this person legally, and as soon as he could get funds
to transport them he would be able to get them and bring them to the
reserve. So trip members Grace Lush, Carolyn Bakker, and myself provided the money to transport these cats back to the reserve. They are young adults who were just captured in traps just 2 months ago, and Mauro feels they are pretty healthy. So we expect that they will be able to be released shortly. Mauro was leaving shortly after we left the reserve to go get the ocelots. He will house them at the reserve until we return in early February. During this time, they will be wormed and monitored for any health problems, and treated accordingly, as well as fattened up.
Then when our group returns in early February, if the cats have showed
no signs of illness, we will travel to the far boundaries of the
reserve, and release these two into the neighboring half a million acre
reserve.

We also bought caging supplies with FCF member donation money to build a soft release cage in the jungle. We brought in the supplies, and left
some money for labor on the cage. We sat down and designed a cage and
decided on the location of it, and the reserve staff will begin
construction on it after we left, to have it completed by February. This will be a cage for cats that have been in captivity for a long time, to allow them a gradual release back into the wild. They will be able to come and go from their cage as they please, with food provided for as long as they need until they have acclimated to life in the wild and no longer need their diet supplemented. We plan to move Missy into this release cage in February, and start preparing her for release.

There's lots more to tell, but I'll save a more detailed report for the
newsletter, so keep an eye out for it in the next issue. Lots of great
pictures of Little Chief to share as soon as I have time to download the pics also! The next trip to the reserve is January 30th, so get your deposit in now....lots of exciting things to get to see and do on this next trip...you don't want to miss out on being a part of the pair of ocelots being released and the beginning stages of Missy's release...not to mention getting to meet our new lodge ambassador Little Chief, the ocelot kitten! It may seem that we are only helping the jungle cats a little tiny bit at a time, but a little bit here and there adds up to a lot over time. It looks like after our first year of helping this reserve, we will have rescued 4 ocelots and will have released 3 of them back to the wild. It's only 4 cats, but that's 4 lives saved that would have otherwise been lost to the gene pool forever. If we keep going at this rate or possibly increase the amount of rescued cats each year as we continue support over time, we will have really made a dent in helping these cats in their natural habitat. And that is something really special. It is not just one person's or a few people's work, it is about all of YOU supporting the project and working together to do whatever we can to support the reserve and save the cats. All of YOU are making it possible through your donations, whether they are donated supplies or financial donations, and all of you that go to the reserve to bring income to the people and to share your knowledge with them, that makes the difference in saving the cats and supporting the reserve.
You are the real heroes that the reserve appreciates, depends on, and
sends their thanks to, so my hats off to all of you FCF members who have been supporting the reserve in the many ways that you do!