Rescuing Toucans from illegal trafficking!

in #rescue5 years ago (edited)

From Cats & Dogs, to exotic and beautiful Toucans!


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On our way to David City to pick up Rocky, a dog that we rescued a couple of weeks ago and visit the doc for @evecab, we had the opportunity to stop on the road and confiscate / take two beautiful birds from a group of kids that were selling them next to the road.

Before I start telling this story, it is important to mention a few things happening in our society.

First of all, here in Panama, and in many developing countries as well, many local low level income families send their kids to work and bring money home, instead of making sure these kids attend school and do homework the other half of the day. Some of these kids do go to school and many others don’t.

On the way between mainland Bocas and the next province Chiriqui, you see very often kids selling fruits or veggies, very rarely you see the actual parent standing for hours under the sun next to a road without sidewalk close to the danger of cars passing by at around 100 kms per hour, waving at the cars to see if anyone stops to buy something.

But this time was a bit different…

After 30 minutes we initiated our road trip, I could see from far a group of kids (3) with something in their hands, colorful and moving. Everything happen so fast so when I realized those were birds I slowed down and pulled over, making sure to stop in a safe spot so cars from both sides could see us from far.

As soon as I got out of the car, these 3 kids were running at me with the birds. It was horrible to see how they were carrying them from their beak and listening how these poor birds were screaming, probably out of pain or fear.

I asked @evecab to start filming, my idea was to show to near police the faces of the kids so maybe they could do proper research and get to their parents.

It turned out the birds were toucans! One of them had an elastic band around the beak. I was already asking myself ”for how long these birds have been like that, under the sun without no water nor food”.

My goal was to talk to them easy, explaining to them that it is illegal to catch these type of birds from the wild and try to sell them.


In Panama, Toucans are in danger because of illegal trafficking.


From these 3 kids probably around 10, 14 years old, the one that looked older was very mad and he was looking me with a mean face. I kept talking but suddenly @evecab lost her patience, stopped recording and went to take one of the birds from the younger kid.

In that moment I was like… ”I guess it’s enough of the talking…” so I grabbed the stick from the older kid who had the Toucan tied to it, he did not want to lose it, so I asked him to do the right thing.

@evecab put the birds inside our car while I kept trying to explain to these kids why this was bad.

Suddenly, a local man in his late 40s came out of the woods with a machete, that is when I thought: ”well, this is it, this must be the dad or uncle of one of them… where should I hit him before he tries to do something stupid.”

Luckily he wanted to know who I was and I told him I work closely with the environmental social civil group in Bocas and repeatedly told him that what these kids are doing is penalized by local law and that I was going to file a complaint in the next police station.

He wanted to know my name and phone number, of course I did not give any info.

Lastly, I told the kids if I ever see them again by the road selling any fruits or vegetable, I was going to buy everything from them, but to never capture animals from nature.

I got into the car and we left.

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If you think about it, I should have not encouraged them to sell anything, but in that moment my main focus was to make a point about not capturing wildlife. I hope these kids won't do that again. And I also hope that their parents did not harm them because of losing the birds and coming back home without money. Which is most likely to happen.


In our next stop, where there is a lady with a restaurant and who also likes nature and taking care of street dogs, we thought about leaving the birds free in the back of her property.

To our surprise, her son Jose, is a ranger from the environmental department, a good guy. He helped us cut the strings from their claws, gave them water and food. He said he was going to make sure to take them to another station where there is a refuge, where they will keep the toucans and wait for their wings to grow, and then release them.


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Jose trying to give one of them rain water.


I just called the Regional Director of the Environmental Minister of Panama, a good woman I know that is always helping us in our environmental causes.

She told me that she knows there is a family in that area that are illegally capturing wildlife, that they have caught only minors, but have never caught an adult, and that they are working hard to get to this family.

I really don’t know what to say but, I think authorities around there either are not doing a good job or they are being part of the problem. I will have to do a bit more digging into it.


During all this adventure, I learned some things about Toucans, they eat meat, they cannot fly high or for long periods, so they jump from one tree to another one. They can also live for 20 years, it is sad to think the quantity of toucans that have been caught and has to spend their rest of their life inside a cage with their wings cut off.

Anyways, I invite you to go @evecab Dtube video and see how lovely and calm the toucans were with us in the car, they even fall asleep: Look who cross our path this time: saving Toucans!

I am happy for these two innocent creatures, but also feeling sad for many of them that will be caught, and specially sad for these kids and their families. I hope things will change and the government focus more resources for a better education and job opportunities.


PS: I have to say that the most difficult part of this adventure was to clean all the shit out of the back seat, but it was worth it!


Thank you!

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This is awesome m8. Well done!

I see how beautiful they are as animals, and sure it must be amazing to be up close to such wonderful and colourful birds. But I'd much rather see them from further away, even through binoculars etc in their natural environment. I don't understand these people who would keep such birds in cages. Tbh, i never understood birds as pets! Even as a child I saw instinctually that by its very nature, a bird shouldn't be caged.

Maybe no animal should be caged, full stop. But when you're 5 years old you want a pet/companion. I had a hamster for years, then we got a cat. But birds need to fly, simple as that. Their instinct is to fly. Even my hamsters got to walk about my room every day when I let them out, much to my mother's annoyance as it would leave little droppings everywhere lol

But my friend had a budgie, and when ever he let it out the poor thing just flew madly about before cowering in the corner of the ceiling. I distinctly remember being angry about it, even at such a young age.

Anyway, you and @evecab are both kindred spirits. I would have done the same.... but probably would have got a machete swung at me 😉 quick thinking telling the guy you were working for the environmental agency.

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Ah, this makes me sad but I'm glad you guys came along at the right time and saved these gorgeous birds.

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