What has been build? Animals I

A new update from Esperanza Verde, with the new logo. We hope you like it! More
than half a year has passed since the last update, so there is a lot to
tell.............................................
What has been build?
We finished the bathroom at the house, and have now the luxury of not having to go outside
in the night anymore to go to the toilet! Many volunteers helped us finishing this, putting up
the walls, smearing them with cement, tiling etc. It also
has a shower and a washing table for washing clothes.
Again we had to figure out how we would get our water.
Since the water system fell apart during the last rain
season, we have had water from different natural wells we
found. But during dry season they both dried out. So
Robert (our volunteer and water specialist) went looking
Bathroom
for more wells and finally it was decided to try the old
water supply system again but this time we would lay the hose through the forest and not
through the stream. This way, during rainy season, and heavy rainfall, there will be less chance
of the hose being flushed away. They had to take the hose over a hill, which was the trickiest
part, but after some waiting we got water to the house. And it is still working; it might even
provide water for in the future cages. During this time we again learned the importance and
luxury of having running water always around. In Bello Horizonte, the nearby village, they are
dependent on one well, where they get their water with a bucket. There are no streams
running through the town, like the stream near our house. So people in the town are totally
dependent on the well and the big river for its water. You wonder if many know how polluting
it is when they let people look for gold in the river with big machines in front of the village!
In the last year we have built 3 small cages, one for the capuchin monkey, Mica, one for Pepe,
the tayra, and one spare, empty one. We recently added a 3rd compartment with a water basin
to Pepe’s cage. We noticed he was jumping and almost swimming in the water a lot on the
daily walks, so now he can do it as well during his hours in the cage.
Office
As we needed space for doing the administration, the
microscope, the weighing scale for weighing animals, and
other, mostly veterinary material, we decided to build an
office. We built it, up the hill behind the house. It is a beautiful
spot, with a nice view of the forest. In the afternoon you can
see parrots flying over the forest. It is great to have a separate
to work quietly and having a private bedroom again!
Animals I
Pepe, the tayra, and Mica, the capuchinmonkey, always keep us busy.
They are both doing good. Pepe is still happy to go on his walks with a
volunteer twice a day. He even encountered a wild tayra on one of his
walks. Though, it was not such a positive experience for him, as Douwe
had to interfere, because the wild one attacked Pepe.
Pepe
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He is really tame and when he doesn’t feel like coming back after 2 hours, he decides to hide
somewhere. When we leave him and come back after an hour, he is still in the same area
where we left him, as if he was waiting for someone to get him.
He even stayed some nights outside, but even then doesn’t come back himself, although he
should know his way around pretty well. In a real romantic story maybe he will once
encounter a female and she will teach him the way of living in the wild again…..but well
although there is always hope…..it is hard to tell if it will be…. There are
still many things he does not know of living as a wild tayra.
Mica is growing up and as she has no other capuchins around she sees us
as her group. But most of the time she is in the trees, catching some
insects and playing around. From of very young we taught her the safest
place is in the trees, and mostly she will only come to the ground if we are
sitting outside as well. We hope we will soon be able to apply for a licence
for the rescuecentre (after constructing the aviary and the bodega), so we
can receive more capuchins, as that will be the only way she would really
learn how to be a ‘real’ capuchin.
Mica
Coming home from Holland we heard about a tapir being held in the village as a pet. The
owner came to us to ask if we could help him cure some
wounds the tapir had. So we went and saw a young male
tapir, named Rincay. During his earlier captivity someone
had thrown boiling water over him, and had him tied up
at his legs. Every couple of days we went to cure the
wounds, while talking with the owner about the
difficulties of raising and having a tapir as a pet. After a
couple of weeks he came to us to ask if we would take the
tapir to take care of him. Of course we could not say no,
Rincay
but we first had to convince him we could not pay
anything for the tapir. We had a nice long talk with him and
promised him we will help him in making and selling souvenirs, which he could make out of
wood. He wanted the best for his animal and on the same day he brought Rincay to us,
following him on the path to our house.
Since then we have been taking care of Rincay. In the beginning there was always someone
with him, to make sure he would not cross the big river to Bello Horizonte, and would adjust
fine to his new surroundings. But after a couple of weeks, we could let him walk freely and
now he comes 2 to 3 times a day to get his food. He is now about 8 months old and was just
loosing his babyfur when he arrived. Unfortunately he has had hoofsproblems from of the
beginning, most likely from malnutrition from the day he was taken, when his mother was
killed and eaten. We are in contact with people from the tapirspecialist group and veterinairs,
and hope with their help to be able to get his hoofs better. He will need strong hoofs badly as
it will be a lot of weight they have to carry one day, as tapirs can weigh about 200kg as an
adult.
Since the last newsletter we also got some animals which we could
release directly, as they were from here, and were just recently
caught. We got some tortoises and some boa constrictors. We
gave them a health check and released them in Selva Dormida.
They were all handed to us voluntarily by people of the local
community who caught them near their house or on their
plantation.
Kayla releasing a tortoise
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The last animal we got from someone of Bello Horizonte, is a boa. Unfortunately it was hurt
while cleaning a plantation with a machete. Douwe could stitch the wound and we now take
care of it while the wound is healing and his skin has been shedded. Then we can release it
again in the forest.
Thanks to Douwe’s dad, we have now a beautiful microscope. Even with only 3 animals it is
great to be able to do good faeces research, and more…. Thank you Siemon!
Animals II (in Selva Dormida)
It is still amazing how much wildlife there is around here. We even recently heard from a
neighbour who has a plantation further inland that he has
seen footprints of a Jaguar with a young. This is an animal that
is much endangered, and we hope the people will leave them
be. Douwe talked a lot with the neighbour and he does not
have an intention to kill it, although he has pigs and chicken
there. Hopefully he will not encounter other people who might
think differently.
Green iguana
Near the house we heard and then saw a porcupine in a tree,
and sometimes during the day you can see green iguanas.
Newly seen in Selva Dormida was a group of brown capuchins (Cebus apella), the same species
as Mica, as well as some Monk sakis (Pithecia monachus) in Selva Dormida.
During the day we can see Amazon parrots and sometimes macaws
flying over. We even had a red-and-green macaw landing, or actually it
fell, in a tree near the house. We thought there was something wrong,
as one wing was a bit hanging and it was very strange to see a macaw
this close. We stayed observing some time, just in case if it would need
help, but then it flew away. Later Machico told us that a guy in the
village had a macaw, wildly caught, at his house, but it escaped. Good
for the macaw! We hope by now he has found his partner back again.
Red and green macaw
Just 10 minutes upstream there is a mineral-salt-wall where on some mornings you can see a
lot of parrots together. There we saw many different Amazon parrots, blue-headed parrots,
and different parakeets. And in the morning and in the late afternoon, there are often some
toucans singing near the house.
The most special bird that was spotted (volunteer Yessica took a
picture on a walk with Pepe) is the King vulture. When she came
back and showed us the picture, Douwe and me were both really
amazed. We never would have expected to see them here. And on
another walk with Pepe, again Yessica could see it again!
As we hope to conserve more forest we hope the amount of
sightings of animals will only grow, like we know happened in
Selva Viva, in Ecuador. As protected forest is not disturbed anymore, animals feel safe again to
live there.
King vulture
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Land
Thanks to Janice, a student-volunteer from Germany, we now
have a new tree nursery on a better and safer (from water)
spot as the old one. She investigated the best way to nurse
plant seeds from different wood tree species. She nursed and
planted different wood tree species, like Cedar and Mahogany,
also different local fruit tree species, like aguaje (a palm fruit)
and guava.
Tree nursery
We recently bought 300 young Caoba (Mahogany) trees to
replant in parts of Selva Dormida where they disappeared.
Janice has inventoried the already planted species and has been looking after them. Thanks to
her we now have more knowledge about how to manage a tree nursery and take care of the
different species of trees.
Since we have been here we have planted about 200 hardwood species and several fruit
species
Luckily we have had no problems anymore with people
trying to enter our land by car to get wood out. People know
now that we are here, know what we are doing and respect
it. In the last newsletter we wrote that we now own 120 ha
land, as we bought 60 ha more. Shortly after we bought the
60 ha, some neighbours came complaining that we were on
their land. As the land does not have an official land title, we
already feared some problems might come up. Anyway, we
invited all neighbours (owners of land next to Selva Dormida)
and together with Douwe and the town official they went to
see where the different parts had their boundaries. At the
end it was decided how they were and the outcome was of
course for us the worst. We didn’t buy 60 ha but actually 20,
but paid for 60 ha. Although we did get it cheap, especially
for European thought, it was still a big amount for here. The
town official got the ex-owner back, which we did not expect
to happen, as we thought he would already have gone with
Selva Dormida
the money. But after some discussion he gave us one third of
the money back, so we still, sort of, got a good deal.
The most important thing that came out of the whole story, is that it is now clearer who owns
what land exactly, and we offered to map (with GPS) all the land owned by people from Bello
Horizonte on this side of the river, so it will become clear for any future purchases who is in
the right. This way it will be very hard for
outsiders to be able to just take some
land on this side of the river.
All and all we still have about 120 ha. Our
land title says 60 ha, but in practice it
turned out to be way more. Now we only
have to find the way to get the rest
official as well. All in good time!
Waterfall
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Family life
Family life has been good in the last half year. We all got more settled in
and with having an office outside, I (Olivia) could
separate work and kids a lot better. We spend a month
in Holland, where we stayed mostly with Douwes
parents and his sister, husband and their son. It was
really great, especially for the kids to finally get to know
each other. My brother, Lodewijk and his wife Annemarie organized a great
party for us, where we got to see most of our friends and some family. It
was great seeing everyone, and we really miss our friends and family most.
However we noticed we are really getting a bit estranged from Holland. It
Douwe and Marlon
was weird to notice, maybe even a bit late after already more than 10
ready for the forest
years...but still. We miss out on a lot of things of daily life of friends and
family, and it is hard to catch up in such a short time, while visiting. But we are really happy
that we can still count on so much support and love from all of our friends and family, thanks!
Marlon is now making sentences with 3-4 words and he is not afraid to say what he wants!
Kayla has been adjusting again to school after having been in Holland. It took some time, but
she is fine now. We really hope that we can help the school in some way. Teachers are not
always motivated to stimulate the children and parents sometimes don’t see the importance
of sending their kids to school, only when they like to go or if they are not needed to work on
the plantation. We hope we will get some volunteers who would like to help at the school for
several months, to teach English, give some environmental education, or just assist. We think
this might just give a positive impulse that is needed.
Kayla studies at home in the afternoon, with schoolbooks from
her old school from Pucallpa. Every week she either plays an
afternoon at a friend in Bello Horizonte or she takes someone
home. She sometimes also has a sleepover. Probably to do as well
with her age, but she often comes home telling about how bad
the boys at the school are pestering her, or that she had a fight
we her friends. But then the next day it is fine again and she plays
with them, at least with the girls. But she told me she now found
Kayla studying at home
a way to make the boys stop, by just making a gesture of –Nenene,
que importa- and then they leave her alone. She is a tough one!
We think for her it must be the hardest of us all to go through all the changes of the last years,
and then always having different people in her house, while coping with being the only ‘gringa’
at school etc. But she talks about it and seems to be able to deal with it...one way or the
other...! She plays a lot with Marlon, still sometimes a bit rough, but she can be a good
babysitter and can even bring him to sleep in the afternoon.
Soon she will have an old friend visiting her. Anja and her mother Annelies (who was a teacher
in Kayla’s school in amaZOOnico in 2007), will stay with us from December till February.
Marlon loves playing in or with water, playing in the sand, which we keep
outside for cement constructions, and just walking around with a stick
playing he is cleaning as if having a machete (the typical big knives used here
for cutting grass among others). He finally got over his waking up in the
middle of the night, so we can all now sleep pretty well till about 5:30 or
even sometimes a bit later. But at least he is not waking up anymore yelling
and crying... I am still hoping for the moment he just wakes up and starts
Marlon and Mica
playing till we come and get him.....
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Volunteers
Picnic at the waterfall
When we came back from Holland we arrived in a full house,
that was funny as we had to adjust to the new volunteers, as
well as they had to adjust to living with a family. But it was
great and we could directly start with
some constructions. We had some tough
weeks, as a lot of wood needed to be
carried and then all the material and
sand for the aviary.
After Men and Seraina left, we still had as long-term volunteer Bigna, who
joined us already in March. And then Anne and Janice joined us as well for
a long time. We had also several short-term volunteers. At the moment we
can say that we have had most volunteers visiting who we knew from our
time in amaZOOnico, and we hope that many more will come and visit us.
But of course we are also hoping of getting new people interested in
volunteering with us.
Forest walk
At the moment we only have one person coming in December so if anybody feels like spending
Christmas and New Year with us, it would be great having you here!
As soon as we have enough volunteers we can start the construction of the aviary, so if you
like building come and join Douwe in this!
But also for people who don’t know anything about
construction there is enough to be done; taking care of the
resident animals (Mica, Pepe and Rincay, at the moment as
well a boa), or planting trees, taking care of the tree nursery,
cleaning paths etc. etc.
Walking with Rincay
Future plans and how you can help
During our trip to Holland we collected a lot of donations, with which we could buy the rest of
the material needed for a big aviary, as well as some extra material. We recently received
everything, from Lima, and have it now all here. Though it will take some time before we can
start building, as there are still many small things to be finished, we are glad that we have
everything here. As soon as we have enough volunteers we will start the construction.
We will also be building a bodega, a building where the food for
animals can be stored and can be prepared. At the moment we
prepare most of the food in our own kitchen. Although we don’t
have a lot of animals, we would rather keep it totally separated,
hygienically safest. Also the bananas that we have stored outside
of the kitchen need to be stored inside. There are many
opossums that feed upon them in the night. We decided to build
a more simple construction as a bodega than we have in our mind
for the future, as this would be too costly at the moment. We will
only need some wood and wire mash, and later we can then easily
improve this bodega with cement floor, more space etc.
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Kitchen
We have material for the birdcage, as well as for the
enclosure for Rincay (except for the cement for the water
basin). As soon as we have enough time and people to
help we will start with the aviary. Douwe and Machico will
start first with an enclosure for Rincay. At the moment he
is still free, but if it becomes too risky to keep him outside
(e.g. if he goes too far, and might be hunted) we want to
have a cage ready for him. This will be a big cage of 50m by
Wiremash for the enclosures
50m, with a water basin. The cage is consisting of a fence,
which is fairly easy to set up. The more complicated thing is the pool, as this has to be big.
At the moment most help is needed physically, as in volunteers, or in donations as to help us
pay for a salary for workers who can help in constructions.
We are still looking for people who want to help us paying the
yearly salary for Machico. For this year we already received the
amount of 200 US$ for him (thank you Susi!). His yearly salary
(including an amount for medical expenses and a paid holiday of
4 weeks) is €2.650 or US$3.312, 50. We want to be able to offer
him a long term position in Esperanza Verde. He is trustworthy,
a hard worker, helps in everything, and would be great in the
future as well as a forest ranger. He often takes volunteers on a
walk through the forest where he explains them a lot about the
trees and there use, as well as about animals.
Elena preparing lunch
Machico helping with the
bathroom
Machico, as well as Elena, our cook and help in the house, are our
permanent staff. Even when donations are coming in for
materials for enclosures we always have to think of keeping
enough at hand to be able to pay their salary. With the costs for
food and medicines for animals, their salaries the main monthly
costs of Esperanza Verde, as food for people is covered by the
income of volunteers.
If you have a website or know someone with a website related to nature conservation, or
animal rescue, we would be grateful if you could arrange a link to our site. This will help finding
our site faster when googled, which will give us more opportunity of receiving volunteers.
THANK YOU!
Esperanza Verde would not be possible without all the help we have been receiving, physically,
morally or financially.
A special thanks goes out to Siemon and Henny who helped us again in financing a big part of
the project and supporting all our efforts from Holland. And thank you Siemon for arranging a
microscope for us.
Thank you Bigna, Anne, Robert and Janice, for staying such a long time helping us. It made our
life richer and a lot easier!
www.esperanzaverdeperu.com – Info@esperanzaverdeperu.com
Thank you to all the volunteers who have stayed with us and
helped us in everything:
Christopher, Jamie, Yessica, Nathalie, Lewis, Noë, Nick, PJ,
Jasper, Amie, Line, Theres, Alexandra and Geert.
Thank you Noë and Yessica for working on a logo for Esperanza
Verde as well as helping with the layout for the website. The
results are great!
Thank you Marta, Catelijne and Adrian for all the hours you spend voluntarily for building us a
new website. Thank you for your patience while waiting for us to finish a logo.
Thank you Lodewijk and Annemarie for the great party you organized for us while being in
Holland. This way we could see many friends and family.
And thank you Mark for lending us your music installation and setting it up.
Thank you for all the donations we received on the party:
Dick and Thelma, Ammy and Ewald, Henk and Aline, Paddy, Leo
and Sanne, Roelant, Frankie, Maarten, Floris, Wouter and Yessica
W., Rianne, Eva, Frans and Julia, Michiel, Juriën, Richard, Jelle and
Saskia, Tsjitske, Henk and Lies, Eric L., Magreet, Said and Lobke,
Ewald V., Sigrid, Andries, Patricia and family, Hans and Renee,
Anne-marie, Sven, Githa and Bert, Catelijne and Ron, Maaike and
Michael, Wouter and Saskia C., Bas and Frederike, Henk and
Erica, Ellen and Mark, Marijn, Dineke and Ari.
Marlon: 2 year!
Thank you Sabrina for giving up your birthday presents in order to receive donations for
Esperanza Verde. It was a great success.
Thank you Jennifer, Yessica and Belen with all your help in corrections and translations.
Thank you Jule, Nico and Trisha for helping with the business plan.
Thank you Raphaela for all the material you send us, especially for doing
microscopic research.
Thank you Lodewijk for giving us your laptop, we bring it to good use.
For their donations we want to thank:
Siemon and Henny Bakker, Lodewijk Conrads en Annemarie Visscher,
Lambrecht Kok and runners, Caspar Van der Wal, Erik Lodenstein,
Theres Zigerlig, Prisca Feusi, Annette Schwannecke, Manuel Krauss,
Kevin, Ursel and Peter Krauss, Susi Maldonado, N. v.d. Kerk-Oele.
And our periodical donators: Jule Ritz, Annelies Gerber and Trijn Mulder
Bigna and Marlon
feeding Mica
In Holland we are supported by the Dutch foundation ‘Esperanza Verde’. Willemijn de GraafBakker gave her function over to Anne-marie Wieringa, who together with Sven Groenen and
Welmoed van Geel-Koopman will now form the board of the foundation. Willemijn now
joined as a volunteer, as well as Patricia Pennin. Thank you all for the time and work you are
putting in for Esperanza Verde!
www.esperanzaverdeperu.com – Info@esperanzaverdeperu.com
This year Sven gave a successful presentation to students of the Van Hall Institute in Holland,
where Douwe and I studied Animal Management. Thank you Peter and printer for sharing the
costs for the flyers.
In Germany we are supported by the German association ‘Förderverein Esperanza Verde’.
Thank you Jule for all the support you are giving us and thank you Nico for helping her making
it all work with the association Also thank you to the other board members: Steffi, Kristin,
Raphaela, Men and Seraina. You can become a member of this association by paying a
periodical fee. You will get regular updates, but you can also help them with sponsoring
activities, or just get in touch with old volunteers. Membership fees and income of any PRactivities are entirely given to Esperanza Verde.
In Australia we are supported by Donna Simmons and Mark Rutter, who also set up the
Facebook group ‘Green Hope-Esperanza Verde’. We hope we will get many more supporters
and volunteers through their help. Thank you Donna and Mark.
We got a lot of things done with all your help and we will continue to work hard to realize all
the things we have been dreaming of.....
Big hugs,
Douwe, Olivia, Kayla and Marlon
Want to write us a letter, send a postcard, or send us some local
sweets of your country, we are always happy to receive anything:
Esperanza Verde
c/o Olivia Conrads/Douwe Bakker
Apartado 85
Pucallpa
Peru
Please don’t send packages over 2kg, as it is a hassle to get them through
customs here.
Kayla always climbing
Donations can go to:
Directly:
O. Conrads
Ref.: Esperanza Verde
Bank: ABN AMRO
Acc.nr.: 581383192
IBAN: NL68ABNA0581383192
BIC/SWIFT: ABNANL2A
Bank address:
Schonenburgseind
Postbus 25
3990 DA HOUTEN
The Netherlands
In Holland: (Foundation with ANBI)
Stichting Esperanza Verde
Bank: Triodos
Acc.nr.: 19.83.12.393
IBAN : NL74TRIO0198312393
BIC/SWIFT: TRIONL2U
In Germany:
Förderverein Esperanza Verde e.V.
Bank: Saalesparkasse
Acc.nr.: 3900031435
Bankcode: 800 537 62
IBAN: DE15 8005 3762 3900 0314 35
BIC/SWIFT: NOLADE21HAL
Bank address: Heideringpassage 4, 06120
Halle, Germany
Photos update: thanks to Amie, Bigna, Yessica, Anne and Robert.
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