End of July 2007, members of Mundo Azul and the Ecological Police in Lima made a raid and captured a dolphin meat dealer in Callao. When we arrived at the police station in Ventanillas, we encountered a red-and-green macaw and a good number of other parrots and parakeets, that had been confiscated the day before in Limas central market where they where up for sale. While the macaw seemed to be still well the parrots were in a terrible state, freezing in the cold and humid climate of Lima. They were waiting to be transported to a nearby rehabilitation station in order to receive first aid. However – the cold climate of the coastal winter is not adequate for parrots and it was no wonder that within the hour we spent at the police station another one of the parrots vanished away.

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Page author: Stefan Austermühle 

As we anyway had planned to travel to Iquitos in order to start cooperation with Pilpintuwasi we suggested to transfer them to the rescue station in order to get them back into the rainforest – there natural habitat – and the Ecological Police agreed immediately. During the coming days Mundo Azul volunteer Jose Galvan made a hell of a job in order to get all the necessary transport permissions, which where granted fast thanks to the support from Major Juan Torres from the Ecological Police and thanks to the people from the National Institute for Natural Resources (INRENA). He then had the transport boxes built and sent them off to Iquitos where we picked them up at midnight and transported them immediately to Pilpintuwasi. The entire operation had been a race against time and within the seven days till they arrived in Iquitos several more parrots had died.
The liberation of the birds into a big provisional flight cage was not only a great moment for the birds, but also for Aysha, the four years old daughter of Nina Pardo and Stefan Austermühle, founders of Mundo Azul. She had known for all this days that the birds were coming and had been eagerly waiting to free “her” birds, especially the macaw, whom she named “Fly” (from her favorite song text: “I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky”). So of course she stood up till two o’clock at night, picking the birds from the airport, transporting them by moto-taxi to the port and then by boat to Pilpintuwasi, in order to open the boxes herself.
The smaller parrots were in bad shape at there arrival but will be taken care of by Gudrun and there is a good chance for survival. “Fly” however surprised us all by crawling out of his box, grabbing the keys and locks and biting on them and stretching is wings. And of course Aysha urges us to go back to the rainforest in order to visit her “Fly”, every day. Seems to be the start of a long lasting friendship.
Help us repairing a little bit of the damage humans have done to these animals.
• $5 will care for one of the turtles for a month;
• $30 for feed Rosa the anteater until she moves onto ants;
• $50 will feed all of the birds;
• $280 will feed Pedro Bello, the Jaguar;
• $250 will provide care for the Ocelot.