Tour of the Wildlife Conservation and Rescue Center - Proyecto Asis
More on: Costa Rica Destinations
A unique, interesting, and highly recommended experience in Costa Rica is a visit to the Proyecto Asis Wildlife Rescue Center, located about a half-hour drive (27 km) southeast of the city of La Fortuna, near the Arenal Volcano. The center offers fascinating guided tours, including participation in animal feeding.
Recommended hotels and tours in the La Fortuna and Arenal area in the article: Star Trips from La Fortuna.
The goal of the site is to rehabilitate animals injured for various reasons and to collect animals that were kept illegally as pets in private homes, while attempting to teach them how to survive independently in the wild or providing them with better shelter and food at this facility.
The animals at the site include various types of monkeys: Spider, white-faced capuchin, and howler. Some are very young and were in captivity as pets; there is a need to try and teach them (with the help of other larger monkeys) how to behave in nature and release them after several years. Others are very old and cannot survive in the wild at their age. There are also monkeys that were injured in road accidents or from electric shocks when climbing power poles.
Spider monkeys:
Capuchin monkeys:
The site also houses toucans, macaws, and various parrots that were in captivity with private individuals or were injured. Efforts are made to rehabilitate and release some of them into the wild, though some cannot be released because they would not survive.
There are also several small wild boars that were taken as pets, but once they grew a bit, they could no longer be kept in a home and were abandoned.
Additional animals at the site include raccoons and coatis:
Guided Tours at the Site
Various types of guided tours are available at the site for a fee. The payment is intended to support the rehabilitation project, which also receives a government allowance and is recognized as a non-profit business.
The shortest tour lasts about two hours, during which you receive explanations about the facility's purpose and walk among the various animal enclosures. You will hear about each animal's past, why it is here, how it is being treated, and whether and when it will be released into the wild.
The longer tour takes place immediately following the aforementioned tour, with a break for coffee, cookies, and soft drinks, lasting an additional hour and a half. It includes preparing and weighing food for the different animals and feeding them while observing them eat. You can see how the animals get excited for feeding time, how they grab the food containers, what they eat first, the sounds they make during feeding, and more.
Booking the short tour without feeding (lasts about two hours):
Wildlife Rescue Center Tour in Costa Rica
To ensure that all animals in every enclosure can eat and that a single strong animal does not take most of the food, the food is divided into as many portions as there are animals in each cage. The food is placed inside various tools that the animals must work to extract it from. This makes the feeding process last longer, allows everyone to eat, and encourages them to use their senses and initiative to successfully extract the food from the tools.
The food served to the animals:
The containers used to serve food to the animals:
There is also a 5.5-hour tour (called a full-day activity) that includes the above plus additional volunteer activities on-site.
I highly recommend the 3.5-hour tour, where you see all the animals, receive interesting explanations about them, and enjoy the experience of food preparation and feeding. Beyond that, it is too long and expensive. The activity, which lasts about three and a half hours, is fascinating and teaches much about animal behavior, their nature, the differences between species, the method of care for each, and more. A must-visit destination for animal lovers. In addition to the treated animals, there are also free-roaming monkeys, lizards, turtles, and even caimans (small crocodiles) in the fish pond.
For those interested in a combined and unique experience, the facility also offers the following package:
All the aforementioned full-day activities plus an overnight stay in the home of one of the local residents, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the family's house. This is intended to also get to know the lives of the local residents.
Video about the animal feeding tour at Proyecto Asis: