Ippolito volunteered with La comunidad Inti Wara Yassi, an organization started by Bolivian environmentalist Juan Carlos. There are a total of four wildlife parks, and two smaller parks as well. The first was Parque Machia, which has a reserve that is primarily populated by monkeys.
The area Ippolito lived and worked in was called Ambue Ari. Ambue Ari mainly has pumas and jaguars, Ippolito’s primary interests. This town is different from the Villa Tunari in Parque Machia because Carlos owns it, so there is no tourism.
Carlos began these four parks to promote environmental conservation, inform people about the severities of poaching and rescue endangered animals. It gives the animals a place to stay their whole lives without the danger of being poached or sold as a pet.
These wild cats come from a variety of places. Some are rescued from circuses where they were psychologically damaged and thus express hatred towards humans. Others come from local people in Bolivia who initially bought a puma as a young cat, only to realize they could not feasibly care for it when it grew up. Some of the pumas have also been removed by government officials from domestic situations despite the wishes of the household members, because they are an endangered species.
Each cat has its own eight-kilometer area in the jungle where they can leave their trails and scent and live within their cage. In the wild, a puma might have as much as thirty to seventy kilometers of space to roam, but there are too many different animals living within each park to allot any one of them that much space.
Still, each area is made to simulate a natural habitat as much as possible. Every day for two three-hour periods, a volunteer walks the cats and lets them roam the jungle area marked as their territory.
Ippolito’s favorite puma was named Yuma. “Yuma was a very independent cat and it took a while to gain her trust,” said Ippolito, but once he did they became very close. They walked the trails together and swam together. Sometimes Yuma was very affectionate, cuddling with Ippolito and sleeping in his lap.
Ippolito and Yuma also played games such as soccer to get exercise and extra bonding time. He explained that the better the cat knew an individual, the more trusting it became. Trust between the puma and the volunteer is essential for a successful working relationship.
Besides working with pumas, Ippolito performed basic daily tasks in the community. He and the other volunteers chopped and prepared food for the cats, fed and bathed the animals and prepared and built cages for new cats coming to the reserve. They dug trenches to keep the cats from digging their way out and breaking loose, set up poles and poured cement to seal in all the parts of the cage.
Ippolito is very much interested in wildlife reserve and is thinking about pursuing a career in environmental studies when he graduates. He mainly wants to research what our ethical duties are to animals, if there are any, and determine where they come from.
Ippolito said “This experience [taught me] how to be a man,” as well as how to teach others what they can do to help these endangered species and the best methods with which to protect them from being taken advantage of.
For more information, please visit www.intiwarayassi.org.