AmaZOOnico and the Selva Viva

Tena, Ecuador

You know, I have never liked going to Zoos. All I would think about was ‘what were these animals doing locked away in cages, far from their natural habitats?’ I would become saddened by zoos because I realized, even as a kid, that these animals didn’t choose to be there, and they didn’t necessarily look happy (just laying around looking bored and restricted). I also knew that zoos were put there just for the amusement of Humans. This mentality stuck with me, as I became an adult, and I can still remember fights with people who wanted to drag me to Zoos with them, especially when there were no kids involved. I refused when threatened with the termination of a relationship if I didn’t go. lol Yeah that happened, I was threatened to take a woman to the Bronx Zoo, in beautiful New York City- you know, where animals want to be able to roam freely like they do in their natural environments. I didn’t want to go to the goddamn Bronx Zoo, and I explained my displeasure about zoos, .. and then the Bronx. My point to them was simple “Who the f#!k WANTS to live in the Bronx?” It was a simple but effective question, one which would this person pause (to process that joke as others laughed), but this one told me to “man up and get over it”. I could see that animal sensitivity was not something many modern NYC women were for. So I refused to go to Zoos until I found this one zoo called AmaZOOnico. I only wanted to go because it turned out that this place was much more than just a simple “zoo”, it was the ” Selva Viva “.

When I found it, I was shacked up in the Amazon rainforest, on the Ecuadorian side, and while my phone was clearly not cooperating with me, out there, I did find a terminal with the internet. I got on Google Maps to map out my current location, and while scrolling, I saw some funny looking name, “AmaZOOnico” while trying to locate the hotel. I inquired about the place, to some locals, and they let me know that it was a zoo in the Amazon, close to where I was staying.  I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why they’d have a damn zoo in the middle of the damn Amazon Jungle. It’s a jungle, let the damn animals go. I was furious! The local told me it was a place that would protect animals in something called the “Selva Viva”. I couldn’t find that on the map, so it didn’t register, initially. That was interesting though, sounded much better than a traditional zoo, so I thought to visit. The local told me to check with the hotel I was staying at, and they would surely have a tour there. The problem was that a storm was moving in, so I had to move quickly on this tour, and I was determined to see this place for myself. It was definitely not good for shooting pics, too dark, and the animals were moving too fast to get clear pics in these conditions, all pics I took were way too dark but what I could salvage, I have. I’ve tried my best to share what I can here.

Founded in 1993 by a Swiss-Quichua couple, AmaZOOnico is officially listed as an NGO, with the goal of rehabilitating animals in its “zoo”, starting with creating land which would simulate their natural environment. This zoo environment is referred to as “Selva Viva“, a “Living Forest” if you will, and this is what serves as the confines of the zoo. There is no logging there, there is no hunting there, both are illegal to do in Selva Viva, although both are huge in the Amazon now, by big oil and people with no care for the nature of the earth, in favor of profit. They’re killing animals, spraying harmful chemicals and clearing out the Amazon by the hour, in search of oil. Animals roam Selva Viva although confined in it, similar to a zoo, the segmentation is from other species if that species might want to eat another animal there, and most important, segmentation from the worst species, humans. So it’s called a zoo for the segmentation of animals, but that’s for their own protection, we just happen to view the animals in the traditional zoo format. The cages are called ALPAS, they are sectioned into 4 phases, each to correlate with the phases of rehabilitation for the monkeys, and as they progress, the move on. Also, all of the workers there are volunteers, and they come from around the world.

We arrived at the Selva Viva and immediately we disappeared under the thick canopy of the forest, in just a few steps taken when disembarking for the canoe. Everything got really dark, thanks to the storm passing and not a lot of sun coming through, that’s why all of the pics are dark- and likely anyone else’ pics will be the same if not with pro gear on a sunny day. I had some bright spots on, with huge boat boots, and I guess this bird saw my colors and didn’t like them. I was immediately attacked by some kind of bipedal bird that came up and started plucking the hell out of my rubber boots, then ran off. And when people weren’t looking it did it again and again to other people. It was very funny. It was taunting me like it wanted me to chase it. It didn’t want any of us in his territory. I had never seen that kind of bird, ever, and it let me know that I’d see some other exotic beauties here in Selva Viva.

I asked the workers of the zoo, “why is there a zoo, in the middle of the Amazon?“, because that really seemed extremely crazy of an idea to disrupt the natural habitat of these animals, despite the aim to segment the animals from humans and each other. They let me know that the zoo is not a zoo in the traditional zoo, it’s really a zoo filled mostly with animals previously stolen from their natural habitat, in attempts to be smuggled out of the Amazon by humans, or illegally taken by people to use as pets. There are also stories they told of people having animals as cute babies, like the big cat that they have there, and then those cats grew up and turned into full-size big cats, not suitable for domestication. The owners, realizing that they’ll likely be mauled to death by the big cat, send the big cats to AmaZOOnico, as well.

So this zoo was a zoo filled with rescued animals including big cats, huge boa constrictors, primates and even rare rodents- most of which went to hide when the group following us got too loud. When this group was getting a talking to about them using flash on the cameras, and for yelling/laughing too loud, we learned that these idiots were making the animals really scared, so many when to hide. Great! We were told that this puts additional stress on the animals were already subjected to high levels of stress when they were illegal, forcefully captured by the people stealing them from the Amazon jungle. I immediately asked, “what makes your zoo so different?” considering that the animals are not immediately put back in the wild. They answered that they will take these animals, feed them, nurse them back to health, then realize the animals back into the wild after showing promising signs of not being affected. The idea of the zoo being the natural habitat was to help move them back to the wild, smoothly. Was that claim they made actually true? It actually was, because these animals are dropped off to AmaZOOnico, by the Ecuadorian Government agency Ministry of the Environment, and yes the organization does deliver the animals to be healed and released to AmaZOOnico (Example1  and Example2). They’re legit! I truly enjoyed this experience, as it was not the typical ZOO, it was not a jail for animals.

I wondered how badly had these animals been treated by the smugglers they were caught with, and how could that mess them up mentally. The workers took us to some Woolly Monkeys and pointed out this one monkey, told us his story, and we were like “we don’t see any signs of abuse”. Less than 1 minute later, this monkey goes flying across the sky, starts fighting with another one for no reason, chasing multiple monkeys away. He was going wild,  and soon after, he comes flying to the front of the cage where we were observing him. He started getting in our faces, after rushing the cage, right after being overly aggressive with his buddies! That monkey was definitely affected!

He started making aggressive faces at us too. lol

They had multiple types of monkeys. I saw these ones they call the Spider Monkeys, they wrap up around everything. Here they are in the ALPA recovering and rehabilitating.

Birds are commonly stolen from their habitats. They have all kinds of exotic birds there. Here a toucan relaxes before the annoying children come screaming.

When you look around, you see that the zoo tries to be as close to the natural habitat of the animals as possible. You’ll walk across a section and then see a marsh or dirty water in a pond. Even that is the environment for animals there. There were some crocodiles living in the pond /marsh there.

Might seem like a regular zoo but this is for the good of the animals. They’re allowed to roam and adapt as they normally would in the wild.

But they are at peace and not on edge, so the zoo is doing its job. These Tapir come up to you if you’re friendly.

Eventually, when the animal has been known to show improved signs of re-adapting into the wild, it’s released and allowed to roam freely again.

If you’d like to donate to help the animals, you can do so with a SWIFT transfer (BCU for those in Latin America) with the following financial entities HERE.