Cost Rica: Proyecto Asis Wildlife Rescue Center

We visited a wildlife rescue center today. We saw a LOT of animals on the tour: I’m going to list the highlights : Monkeys(Howlers, Spider, White-Faced, and Squirrel), Parrots, Macaws, Pigs.

I’m also going to list a fun fact about each one.

Monkeys: They operate in packs, like wolves

Parrots: They switch partners every single year

Pigs: As they get older they start to mess things up

Now I’m going to talk about what they do with the animals. Their goal is to set them free. I’ll list the basic steps, in order.

1. They normalize the animals to a habitat similar to where they are planned to be released
2. They put them in an enclosure with potential friends 
3. They put them in an enclosure which is in the woods to get them even more familiarized with where they will live
4. FREEDOM!!!

There are some cases where they cannot be released. I’m going to talk about two of those special cases.

First a red macaw and a green macaw are in love. This creates a problem, a dilemma more accurately. First part of the problem is that if a macaw and their partner are separated, then, in a week, ONE WEEK, they die, so they can’t be separated. So release them together, easy right? WRONG. WRONG. You can never release one colored macaw in another colored macaw’s territory. Since they’re different colors you have to release them on different coasts of Costa Rica. But if you do, they’ll both die, so they have to stay in the sanctuary forever.

The other case is a scientifically bred macaw, a cross between a green macaw and a red macaw (Frankenstein). The reasons are pretty obvious. First of all it would be an over targeted bird given its bright colors. It also isn’t clear which territory to release it in. Red Macaw territory, or Green Macaw territory? It shall therefore remain in the sanctuary forever. It is also way too aggressive, because it didn’t learn to share at a young age, and being scientifically bred makes it a much more difficult bird to deal with because it may or may not be self-conscious about how it looks. Since this is the case, any animal that they hoped would be its friend, was almost murdered!!!!! Fine, maybe not that serious, but attacked, definitely.

After the tour, I had way too many cookies, and too much lemonade. And we also went to our next hotel.