Ellie

I want to start this piece by reminding you all that there is a long list of reasons why wild animals should never be kept as pets. It is highly unethical, it is cruel, it can be dangerous for both you and the animal, and oftentimes it is illegal. Now, with that being said, I’d like you to think about what comes to mind when you hear the words, “family dog.” You probably think of a playful, loving, and loyal canine, probably a pure breed, and if your thought process is truly traditional, you’re probably thinking of something along the lines of a Golden Retriever or Labrador. Right? Family dogs are known as friendly and even emotional animals who seemingly live for the companionship and approval of their human caretakers. Their wagging tails and receptive demeaner make them ideal pets and at some point, in almost everyone’s life, there comes a time when you’ll want a dog of your own for these very reasons.

What if I told you a rare and exotic species from the Amazon rainforest was capable of exhibiting all these adoring characteristics? In fact, it was not just Ellie the tapir, both Lulu and Armageddon, (species to be revealed at a later time,) also proved the same to be true for them. So, what does this information mean?

 Well, what it does NOT mean is that you should go out and try to pursue a wild animal as a pet. I aim to break down the barriers that exist between humans and animals, especially wild animals, but I also trust that if you’re here on this website and you’ve made it this far into the story, you are capable of taking away from this piece what it was written to deliver to its readers.

Working with wild animals and learning about all their personality quirks on a personal level opens up the opportunity for studying them in a very unique and somewhat controversial way. If a wild, potentially dangerous animal is capable of, I kid you not, all the emotional and behavioral characteristics we see in our own family dogs, what does that mean for wildlife rehabilitation? What does that mean for the human-animal relationship when it comes to wildlife? And most of all, what does it mean for us as a Western society who tend to hold domestic species, such as dogs and cats, at a higher level of importance based on our false understanding that they are far more capable of emotional interaction that closely parallels our own compared to more “exotic” species?

At the time when I was working with Ellie, she was still a juvenile Brazilian Tapir. At the peak of the pandemic, a local Peruvian zoo, ill equipped to care for most of its residents, many of which were probably confiscated from the jungle through illegal wildlife trade, surrendered Ellie at just a few months old to one of my favorite wildlife rehabilitation centers in all of South America. She was underfed, weak and in need of urgent medical and rehabilitative intervention. As time went on, she quickly came out of her shell. Ellie loved to play. She would run and chase and shake her head around like a young, playful filly. She loved to give “kisses,” receive cheek scratches and went wild over belly rubs. She was curious and easily excitable; and, she was trainable. We needed to train Ellie to accept veterinary exams and stand still for injections. She of course was a big girl, so we also needed to teach her how to climb on her make-shift scale, (which I proudly helped construct in the blazing rainforest heat,) for regular weight checks. Imagine, being responsible for training a rare animal, from deep in the rainforest, whose DNA is closely related to that of a rhinoceros! With positive reinforcement and simple tactics, Ellie’s training showed great progress in less than one week.

I’d sit with Ellie under the trees each afternoon. I’d lay with her in the ant covered grass and watch her play with her best friend, Emilio, the silver Brocket Deer. Under an Amazon sun in a natural enclosure situated within the rainforest and surrounded by nature, you can’t help but feel yourself open-up to the animal spirits all around you. It’s a very surreal encounter and you begin to experience the lines blurring between you and them. The respect for the wild in them never goes away, but a unique level of understanding and oneness grows between you. When I experienced this with Ellie, I knew it was going to be an important part of my research and of my development as a conservationist. This is not anthropomorphism. It’s deep observation. It’s quiet, palpable emotions that make you question a lot of what you’ve been taught as a student of biology, animal science, medicine, etc. You see, one thing that continues to concern me as a wildlife conservationist with a special focus on victims of illegal pet trade is the potential for drowning the emotional capabilities and vulnerabilities of animals in hard-cover scientific approaches all for the sake of keeping things “professional” and “appropriate.” We can fight for them and for the wild in them while still acknowledging that many, maybe not all, but many experience the same level of emotion, connection, joy, love, pain, fear and most importantly loneliness as do your pets at home. These emotional factors must be taken into consideration when deciding how to best meet the needs of these animals in a rehabilitative setting. What you see in your dog’s eyes, I’ve seen in the eyes of animals all over the world. I’ve seen it in their demeanor, in their response to stimuli, companionship and in their response to a lack thereof. If that’s not worth at least taking note of, then what is?