They tried to make me go to rehab......

So, how does the ARCAS rehabilitation process work?

There are several essential ingredients required for ARCAS to function in it's rescue/rehab capability.

The first is, unsurprisingly, animals. These arrive from a variety of sources, but most come from CONAP, the government conservation agency. The animals and birds have been seized at checkpoints whilst being smuggled either out of the Petén region of Guatemala (the rainforest part), or at border checkpoints where the animals are destined for the international wildlife market. Some animals arrive from other sources - a spider monkey was brought in today that had been kept as a pet until it's owner decided to release it in a park, and a croc was brought in 2 days ago after it was found swimming rather too close to an upmarket local hotel. Once here, animals remain property of CONAP until their release into the wild or relocation to other collections - at all stages, CONAP has the final say in their future.

The second requirement is money and ARCAS derives it's funding principally from 2 sources. CONAP provides 40% of the yearly budget, plus 5 full time workers and a monthly food donation. The remaining 60% of annual income comes from the volunteers who work at the centre, each paying US$125 per week for the pleasure. Last year the turnover of ARCAS was about $100,000. Many of the facilities at the Flores ARCAS site where I am working were built by the Japanese Development Fund on the late 90's, but funding from external sources dried up in about 2003.

Following on from the last requirement is the third essential ingredient, which are volunteers. Due to the amount of animals, the quarantine area of rehab is where most of the daily ARCAS work happens - most require cleaning and feeding at least twice a day, often more.

The rehabiliation process has 3 stages, the first 2 of which take place in quarantine. These are:

1) Medical rehabiliation

2) Physical rehabiliation

3) Behavioural Rehabiliation

Behavioural rehab is the most time consuming and difficult element of the process, and increases with difficulty in general as the animals get larger and more intelligent.

The animals at ARCAS can be divided into 5 groups when it comes to the rehabiliation process:

1)Reptiles

2)Birds

3)Small Mammals

4)Felines

5) Primates

I hope I'll briefly be able to cover each group in the next few posts, along with the histories of the animals that are here.