It was quite a coincidence that I ended up working in the Rescue Center for 7 weeks after hearing about it not even a year before, but coincidences are what the whole center was founded on. Or shall we call it fate?

Even though the founders of the center, Encar and Sandro, were both working at the zoo in Madrid it was not until a trip to Costa Rica that they met at the beach and fell in love with each other. Soon after, they decided to move to Costa Rica to retire but that chapter of their life was not as peaceful as they might have hoped for. The people in the area started to bring the couple injured animals and their house and property slowly but steadily turned into a wildlife rescue center. The name Jaguar is a bit misleading as there are no Jaguars in the center but there are plenty of other animals that you can look at on two daily guided tours through the center. They are both in the morning but if you want a closer and more private look at the animals, book your private tour for the afternoon. They are done by volunteer workers from the rescue center who work there with a lot of passion and have great knowledge about the individual animals at the center.

There is Harvey, an orphaned howler monkey, whose jaw was smashed when they found him but who is now growing into a healthy, self-confident teenage monkey.

Or Hola, the parrot, who had been a pet for years and can’t be released back into the wild before she stops talking or otherwise she would teach the other parrots in the forest to talk too.

And there are tons of other animals, all with their individual, often sad and difficult stories but each and every one of them cared for as best as people can by the vet and all the volunteers from all over the world from all walks of life.

One late afternoon I remember walking through the center, most volunteers had gone home by the time, and it was very peaceful and quiet, feeling like I was in a Disney movie with Chai, the deer, walking around, parrots talking, they baby monkeys getting ready to go to sleep. Of course, the center is not from a Disney movie, but more like an animal hospital where the main goal is to make the animals healthy, fit and strong (again) so that they can go back where they belong leading a happy life in the wild and hopefully having no interaction with humans after that.
It definitely is worth spending some time at the Jaguar Rescue Center either as a visitor or – even better – as a volunteer, where your tasks will include washing dirty laundry, preparing food plates and distributing them among the animals (one of my favorite tasks as you can then watch the animals enjoying their food), cleaning food plates, cleaning enclosures and one of the most popular tasks among volunteers: taking the monkeys into the forest and spending the day there with them so that they learn how to be in the forest again.

If you want to stay longer (3 months or more) you can also apply for helping out in the nursery, which will include longer workdays and more responsibility but working with lots of baby animals.
You find all the information on how to support the Jaguar Rescue Center under this link:
https://www.jaguarrescue.foundation/

A year ago I donated to a project protecting European pond turtles here around Vienna. Yesterday we were given a very informative tour of the project and also how „our“ designated clutch of eggs had done and how many of those eggs had hatched. They usually put a metal grid over the clutch of eggs right after the turtle lays the eggs to protect it from foxes and other animals, which is necessary as due to the reduction of their habitat, the turtles all lay their eggs in the same area and once a fox or other animal finds one clutch, it will find all the other ones as well. Due to recent dam repairs and construction work in the area where the turtles hatch, some of the eggs were taken out of their nests and put into incubators. Three of them had hatched yesterday so we were able to release the tiny turtles into the water. Interesting European pond turtle-facts:

They cannot swallow unless under water. The turtles hatching in late summer usually stay underneath the ground until April/May which also means they don’t eat for a few months.

The European pond turtle eats insects, snails, frogs etc it hunts in the water. So it eats meat and not salad or grass

Male and female turtles can be differentiated by their eye colour.

Their shell grows with them so until they are fully grown, you can tell their age by the amount of rings on the shell like you can with trees.

The European pond turtle can take in water through their butts, which they release when digging the hole for the eggs. It helps make the soil easier to dig. However, if people disturb the turtles laying eggs and pick them up, the turtle loses that water before even starting to dig so it can’t lay its eggs.