At Amazoonico the Tourno Nocturno is a special volunteer responsibility that most of us really love. This is our opportunity to see the animals and feed them at night. It’s also a chance to see some really cool Amazon creatures. Honestly though, waking at night, in the jungle can be quite daunting - thankfully we never go alone.
We’ve each been given a few opportunities and none are exactly the same. Some animals are far more active at night which means that Night Watch is the only opportunity to see them.
It all starts at 6:30 - which means that the night watchers have been sitting around in dirty clothes stinking the place up for over two hours. Head lamps on, back up the 100 steps we go.
First we fetch 5 big pails of food - 3 are for the Tapirs - each one eats about 15 kg per day! The other two are for the peccaries. While small, these 13 little beasties are ravenous.
Unlike our daylight trips to the animals, we go very slowly and carefully. We swivel our heads often. Insects, spiders, scorpions and snakes are more active at night, and we’re hoping to never make a personal “connection”.
First stop is two tapirs- of course making sure to kick the gate and feeding trays to scare off any “bugs”. Then, with only three buckets remaining, we proceed to the coaties. These are friendly little racoon-like critters. They have been fed earlier and shouldn’t be eating at night so we use ropes to close the feeding area.
We’ve left our buckets unattended for a few minutes so we always make sure to kick them before grabbing the rope. It’s much safer to disturb a scorpion or tarantula with your rubber boots than your hand.
Peccaries are fun to feed. As soon as they hear us they come to the feeding area - snorting and smelling worse than a volunteer. We spread the food around by throwing individual pieces as far as we can - no we don’t purposely try to nail a peccary in the arse, but it happens. Pretty hard to aim a slimy piece of papaya.
Next we close the Wooly Monkeys’ feeding space. This is done with ropes and trap doors. Sometimes the male, who is quite interested in humans will be in the cage and refuse to leave. He’s quite a show boat and loves to spook the volunteers by loudly rattling the cage.
Back tracking a bit, we head to the Toucans. Like the Coaties, they have been fed, but they shouldn’t eat at Night so we close the trap door to the feeding area. This is a good chance to see Pancho, a Lowland Paca (small version of a Capybara) who shares the Toucan space and only comes out at night.
Now with just one bucket of food left, it’s off to the last Tapir. She lives close to the turtle pond, so there’s a good chance of seeing frogs - especially if it’s raining.
It’s then time to drop into Taranatula Valley. We’ve seen between 2 and 6 of these furry beasts every time. They like to live in fence posts and don’t travel far from home so they are easy to spot.
The final stop is the kinkajous. They have food already, so we just have to count them. They sleep up high all day, so we use the opportunity to see if they are healthy and active. The volunteers’ favourite is “Fat Johnny” who, due to a speculated thyroid problem, is significantly larger than his 6 colleagues.
At about 7:15 we head back down the stairs with lots of photos - ready for a shower and dinner - only one of these will be warm!