A touch of the jungle in White County

Center Hill woman has made big-cat, rain-forest preservation life’s work

By Tammy Garrett

LITTLE ROCK — From rural White County to the tropical rain forest of Ecuador is an unlikely commute, but for Tracy Wilson of Center Hill, it’s working out just fine.

Wilson is the director of “Touch the Jungle,” an ecotourism project that allows small groups to experience the wonders of the rain forest firsthand by visiting the Afro-Ecuadorian community of Playa de Oro.

In 2001 Wilson had turned her love for big cats into a burgeoning career. She had obtained a wildlife rehabilitator’s license from the state of Arkansas and was traveling the country conducting feline husbandry classes for zoos and animal handlers when conservationist Rosa Jordan tracked her down through the Internet. Jordan was attempting to open a jungle cat reserve in the rain forest and was in dire need of someone who was experienced in caring for big cats. She convinced Wilson to visit the area, and upon her arrival, Wilson knew there was an enormous amount of work to be done.

Located in a remote part of the Chocó Rain forest in northwestern Ecuador, Playa de Oro owns 25,000 acres of virgin rain forest. The Chocó is one of the last coastal tropical rain forests on Earth and is home to more than 11,000 species of vascular plants and 900 species of birds. Playa de Oro is one of only about a dozen Chocó communities in the province of Esmeraldas that has not sold their timber to commercial loggers.

Touch the Jungle, sponsored by Earthways Foundation, a non-profit organization, has an agreement with the Playa de Oro people to provide a lodge for tourists and the needs for the villagers, such as medical care and salary for its teacher, in return for the community keeping their forest safe from commercial interests and not hunting the jungle cats.

“These people live completely off the land,” Wilson explained. “They are two hours from the nearest road and we couldn’t just go in there and say ‘don’t eat that cat, it’s endangered.’ The jungle is their grocery store. They didn’t even have pets or farm animals.”

Not only were the cats a potential food source for the villagers, they were also a source of fear.

“They had been taught myths about ocelots dragging babies away into the jungle,” Wilson recalled.

It didn’t help the situation when the cats that came to Playa de Oro for rehabilitation were malnourished and angry.

The first cat the staff attempted to rehabilitate died, and when an ocelot that had been kept in a crate and half-starved arrived in the village, Wilson wasn’t hopeful. She explained that animal traders often keep wild cats in crates with little room to move until they are big enough to kill for their hide. This cat, though, turned out to be the staff’s first success story and was released into the jungle after six months.

The turning point at Playa de Oro came when the staff was able to confiscate a baby ocelot from a market where it had been for sale. The staff bottle-fed the tiny cat, and Wilson, who had to return stateside, wrote down explicit directions on how to carefor the ocelot.

“I left thinking, ‘they won’t be able to keep that cat alive,’” Wilson remembered. “But they proved me wrong. They fell in love with it. Finally they didn’t see the cats as monsters anymore.”

The ocelot was named “Little Chief” and followed the villagers on hikes and rode in canoes with them. As he grew older, Wilson warned the staff to be prepared for his eventual return to the jungle when he reached sexual maturity, at around 18 months.

“He started disappearing for a few days at a time and they got worried and traveled out to a phone to call me because they had seen a big male ocelot in the area and they were afraid it would get him,” she said.

Finally, “Little Chief” left for good and the staff has seen him only once when he was caught on one of the “camera traps” that are placed in the jungle to keep track of the animals.

When the ecolodge got up and running and the staff became more comfortable with the cats, everything seemed to begoing smoothly. Then a mining company approached the villagers about contracting with them for use in their rain forest.

“We were scared to death,” Wilson said. “They (villagers) took a long time to consider the offer, but they had seen the damage that mining and drilling had done to other villages along the Santiago River and they turned them down.” In 2007, the Playa de Oro community renewed their commitment of protecting their forest and wildlife, as well as continuing their tourism efforts by signing a new contract with “Touch the Jungle.

“One of the reasons why this type of rain forest is so important to preserve is that there are so many species of plants, animals, birds and reptiles that are only found in this habitat, no where else in the world,” Wilson said. “So when we lose the Chocó Rain forest, we lose countless numbers of endemic species.”

She noted that the destruction of the rain forest can be seen from satellite images on Google Earth at Playa de Oro, Ecuador, South America.

“You can zoom in enough just to see a lot of green and undisturbed forest. You can also zoom out a bit to see more of the general region and you can actu-ally see areas of rain forest that have been completely destroyed. They are all brown.”

The people of Playa de Oro have benefited greatly from their association with Touch the Jungle. Wilson and Earthways provide an annual community development grant, assist with tourism equipment, provide funding for an elementary school teacher, which is only $2,250 per year, and assist with medical expenses.

“The elementary school teacher was originally from the village and went to college to get her teaching degree and came back to the village to help educate the village children,” Wilson said.

The manager of the ecolodge is from the village and left to obtain a degree in agriculture. He is now teaching the community how to plant crops.

The project also sponsors children who want to continue their education past elementary school by helping them with expenses incurred by staying in another village during school season where more education is offered.

Wilson returns to Playa de Oro a few times each year to conduct ecotourism trips that includes 11 nights and 12 days. The trips originate in Quito, the nation’s capital, where group members meet before embarking on their trek into the rain forest. The group spends three nights at a bed and breakfast in Quito and visits landmarks including Old Town and the equator. Then they travel on to Playa de Oro by boat and spend four days in the remote rain forest community.

“We go on hikes and other activities in the jungle,” Wilson said. “There is a waterfall where we go to for a swim and a lot of beautiful scenery. The children have a dance troupe and they perform for the tourists. We visit Otavala. They have the largest artesian market in South America. And then we go to the cloud rain forest area in Intag Valley. We travel by horseback and visit hot springs and coffee farms before heading back to Quito.”

Because space is limited, only eight people are allowed on each tour.

“I’ve met people from all over the world [on the tours],” Wilson said. “There have been several people from Europe and from Canada.”

Wilson’s love for animals comes across loud and clear, even in giving directions to her house.

“I’m easy to find,” she said. “Just look for the house with llamas in the front yard.”

And she wasn’t joking. Not only are llamas lounging in the front yard, but there are also peacocks strolling the grounds and a playful doe that nuzzles for attention.

“Her name is Yum-Yum and not because of the way she tastes,” Wilson said with a chuckle.

The doe was rescued as a fawn and is too domesticated to be released into the wild.

“She was raised with dogs and she acts like one,” Wilson said as Yum-Yum followed her around the yard.

A private big cat refuge on her property in Center Hill houses 12 cats, including Canadian lynxes, ocelots, African servals and bobcats. The animals lounge amid thick, green bamboo and roam intheir enclosures when the weather is cool. Santiago, named for the river that runs through Playa de Oro, enjoys sucking on Wilson’s finger as if it were a pacifier.

“They (ocelots) are pretty rare in captivity in the U.S., but he was donated to me by a zoo in Texas as an ambassador animal to help fundraise for the Playa de Oro project,” she said.

To help fund the cost of the refuge, Wilson also raises hybrid cats that look like miniatures of their wild cousins, the African serval and Asian leopard.

“These are great for people who want wildcats because they look exotic but they’re domesticated,” she said.

For more information on Touch the Jungle tours, Wilson can be contacted by e-mail at Tracy@touchthejungle.org.

Three Rivers, Pages 124, 125 on 09/21/2008