Birth control for pumas

Some of you may know that the “baby puma” that was confiscated from a house in August 2008 is not actually a baby anymore and that he reached sexual maturity a few months ago. Immediately we started contemplating castrating him, but something always happened preventing us from actually doing it. This resulted in the unhappy accident of Pumara giving birth, but unfortunately she did not prove to be a good mum and both babies died. Santa Martha does not agree with breeding these wild animals for other than conservation purposes, and so whenever we can, we do keep males and females separately or we castrate the male (castration is cheaper and easier than spaying a female).
Pumas are not endangered, neither can be released here in Ecuador, and there are plenty of animals in captivity (e.g. in zoos) for exhibition and so their breeding is not actually necessary. That is why we had been planning to castrate our male puma. Finally this month we managed to get it all organised, and the vets (Drs. Andres Ortega and Pablo Arias) from Guayllabamba Zoo did the operation.
Once again, the volunteers helped with everything; we were there every step of the way from assisting the vets to carrying the animal between the clinic and the cage, and then supervising it until the effects of the sedatives wore off.
He is doing fine, and doesn’t seem to hold grudges. We will see if his “peep” sound gets even higher pitched...

New cats at Santa Martha

The same day as the puma’s castration, taking advantage of the presence of the vets, we also went to take custody of an ocelot and two macaws. Their owner has a private reserve in the Oriente and he rescued these animals a while ago, then kept them in his house looking after them. One of the macaws was shot at and so has a broken wing and it cannot fly. The ocelot’s mother was killed and the indigenous people kept him as a pet while he was a nice little baby. As soon as he started growing they realised that it was a dangerous animal and so gave it away. The new owner fed him with live prey (mainly chicken) and so the animal is very aggressive. He could be released as he is young, strong and wild, but there is no habitat really where he could be set free without the risk of being killed by poachers. Ocelots and other felines are sought after and hunted extensively “thanks” to the illegal fur trade, making releases hard or even impossible. Habitat destruction is also a huge problem, as the growing human population and improving infrastructure turns wilderness into a non-environment friendly surround.

At the moment we feed him either with beef or live prey (chicken, rabbit) and we will see what his options are in terms of release.

We also received a tiny ocelot that was confiscated by the police from a house. He is still very young and was very badly treated. It is severely undernourished, and has dermatitis.

So at the moment we have 7 African lions, 1 jaguar, 3 pumas, 6 ocelots, 1 hawk, 1 eagle and 4 kestrels that eat meat. The chicken we used to feed the carnivores with were infested with fleas and so we decided not to receive them until they sort the problem out at the chicken farm. In the meantime, we are to buy red meat to feed the carnivores, approximately 500 pounds (about 250 kg) per week. We now feed the cats three times a week with beef, and the birds of prey with either rabbits, guinea pigs, mice or chicken.

Bits and pieces

• This month we released a snake and a sloth. Both of them arrived on a weekend and since they were healthy and did not need rehabilitation, they were sent away on Monday and were released back into the wild. When an animal is fit for release (e.g. it was brought to us because it wandered into a house accidentally and was captured but it is healthy and wild) we prefer releasing it as soon as possible. Obviously, the more time it spends in captivity, the more difficult it is to release it so we always act as quickly as the circumstances allow us.
• We started building a new aviary for the small parrots that can be released. This is a much larger cage, where they will be able to practice flying more, this way helping with their release options.
• The young coati with the eye problem was sent to Guayllabamba Zoo for an operation. She developed a tumour of the left eye and so that eye needs removing. According to the vets, it is a common problem among these animals, as their eyes are very sensitive to sunlight. When they are kept as pets, they are often tied up outside the house without any shelter or protection from the direct sunlight. First a white layer develops on their eye, which can become so thick that the animal will not see through it and becomes completely blind. When it gets to an advances stage a tumour may develop, protruding out of the eye socket. We have two coatis that arrived to Santa Martha with eye problems. Their enclosure is covered in black material to protect their eyes from the sun but once the process started it is irreversible and although we are able to slow it down, eventually they do lose their eyesight. This coati will be away for a month or two, depending on how well she is recuperating after the operation, then she will be back home, and then once again we can scratch her little ears...

New animals

• 39 semiaquatic turtles
• 2 sloths
• 3 budgies
• 1 false coral snake
• 2 tamarins
• 1 porcupine
• 1 squirrel
• 1 pygmy marmoset
• 2 ocelots
• 2 macaws
• 1 boa constrictor

New home for the kestrels

Earlier this year we received 3 baby kestrels whom we were always planning to send for rehabilitation. Later on we received another one of the same species, which was successfully introduced to the existing group. At the moment there is no available space for them in a rehabilitation centre but we use the time they spend at Santa Martha to teach them what we can in order to speed up the rehabilitation process. Rehabilitating a raptor takes a long time, and so it is important that we do our best to reduce this long learning period. We started feeding them a variety of food items months ago, especially natural prey items such as small rodents. We also have been moving them gradually into bigger and bigger cages where they can practice flying.
In July we released many animals, including the porcupines, and so we had that enclosure free. It is roughly double the size of the kestrels’ previous home, and so we saw a great opportunity to move them into this more spacious cage. We completely redid the ex-porcupine cage making it suitable for birds by changing the meshing on the walls (the kestrels are much smaller than porcupines so they could have escaped through that mesh size), adding some extra shelters and perches, but leaving plenty of space for them to fly around.
They make full use of the available space, and we can often see them flying. They will stay there until they can be sent for rehabilitation or we’ll have an even larger enclosure for them.We keep receiving cherry-headed conures from the Environmental Police and so the enclosure by the Galapagos tortoises was starting to get a bit too small for them. After moving the kestrels, we separated the conures into two groups, and put 4 animals into the empty aviary.

Gorgeous new arrivals

Those who read the September 2008 newsletter will know the story of the “baby” lioness we sent to Guayllabamba Zoo. Unfortunately, since she was quite a nervous animal, the other lions in the zoo did not accept her and so in August the zoo finally decided to send her back to Santa Martha. We put her in with our old lion as the safest option, since Barbosa is very calm and easy to get on with, and we thought that was the kind of company she needed. They were locked away from each other for a few days so they could get used to each other, but there was never a problem between the two and they got on well from the start. She is actually a lot calmer than she used to be, even though she still hisses at us when we get close to the cage.
Initially, they were together in the ex-jaguar enclosure, which was sufficient for an old bling animal but was quite small for two lions. So in September (after sending away the up-top male lion) Barbosa was moved into the cage of the up-top lionesses, and the young female was introduced into the bottom pride. Barbosa was at first kept in the trapcage allowing the females to inspect him while unable to get into a fight. Soon two of the lionesses came into heat and so we decided to let Barbosa out of the trapcage. He was not too happy about being followed everywhere by to lionesses madly in love with him, but it was quite entertaining for us to watch. Unfortunately, the alpha female was not accepting him into the pride and she kept attacking him, so after a nastier than usual fight we decided to remove him and put him into the empty bear enclosure.
The introduction of the female was more successful, although not at all less complicated. As usual, we separated her from the others, so they were able to interact through the fence that divides the enclosure into two but they could not hurt each other. After two weeks they stopped growling at each other and spent more time by the fence checking each other out peacefully, which seemed like a good sign and so we attempted to open the door. Unfortunately, the young female lost all the fights and started limping and so we had to separate them once again. Another 2 weeks passed and the “old” lioness came into heat, and we used this loving state of her to once again try with the introduction. This time it went well and, even though first the male was quite grumpy, within 15 minutes of opening the door the lions were sleeping close to one another.
We received a baby coati that was found by the police during a routine inspection of a car. She is tiny and adorable and it seems impossible to find enough worms for her... The cuteness competition became fierce when we received a baby kinkajou in September that is, as opposed to the adults, relatively friendly and huggable...
We also received a species rare at Santa Martha. Olingos are very similar to kinkajous and so we mistook it for a baby kinkajou at first but, with the help of some experienced volunteers, he was eventually identified as an adult olingo. It is a healthy and fully nocturnal animal, and so we are hoping to send it for release as soon as possible.

Bits and pieces

• Our enrichment programme continues thanks to the enthusiastic volunteers we had these past two months. We made significant improvements in the cages of the baby woolly monkeys, the jaguar, the quarantine parrots and the two female ocelots; changing the enclosores in a way that encourages the animals to behave more naturally and keeps them occupied for a longer period of time.
• We received another important donation from Worldwide Veterinary Service, a UK based charity, containing essential medications and syringes. Their continuous help is highly appreciated, as it helps us reduce our expenses, which are especially high now with an increased inflow of animals.
• We also keep receiving new squirrel monkeys, and it became more and more difficult to enter the cage at feeding times without risking having an excited monkey running at us through the open door. To minimise the chance of an escape and of course to reduce the stress at every time we have to open the door, we added an outside security cage just like the glass enclosure with the small monkeys have. This way, even if a monkey slips through the door, it cannot escape.
• The police keeps bringing us more and more South American yellow-footed tortoises and so the houses we had before turned out to be too small for the 21 reptiles we have. They also kept breaking the plastic walls and repair was no longer sufficient to prevent them escaping back into the enclosure at night. So we decided to build a bigger house for them, which was built as a combined effort of the farm hands, Johnny and, of course, the volunteers. It is tall and so we don’t have to crawl on our knees when we clean it, has lamps in it for heating and for keeping the rats away, and the walls are thick wooden planks so they can’t break through. During the day they are free to roam the grassy enclosure and at night they are put into the house where it is warmer and dry (the rainy season started already with downpours at night).
• We have seen many individual travellers meeting and falling in love at Santa Martha but in August we finally witnessed the first marriage proposals as well. Grant Gillingham flew over to Ecuador just for a couple of days, only to propose to Kiley Blackstad! We were a bit nervous, but thankfully she said yes without thinking and so we all ended up hugging and walking around all day with a giant grin on our face. Congratulations guys and thank you for letting us share this amazing (although slightly nerve-wrecking, ha-ha) moment!