EcoWorldly

Several days ago my family visited one of Lima, Peru’s zoos. On the day before our visit, I wrote about some of my general thoughts and feelings about zoos, in an article titled “Why Zoos Stimulate Our Minds.”

Writing out my thoughts was a sort of preparative exercise, mostly to try to articulate the main dilemma I have with zoos: do the potential education benefits of zoos outweigh the cruelty of caging animals in small spaces that I personally believe typically don’t provide them with fulfilling lives? I still am not sure of the answer, but my trip to the Huachipa Zoo did answer another intriguing question for me. When zoos are bad, would I personally prefer that a bad zoo exist rather than have no zoo at all?

Before I reveal the answer to the aforementioned question, I should explain that my wife and I came up with some criteria for rating zoos. For the purpose of reviewing more zoos in the future, I wanted to have some reasonable means to compare them. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, the website livinginperu.com reported that the people of Lima soon will enjoy the wonders of a new planetarium. This is great news for Peru, as there are currently not many museums, science centers, or other tourist sites in Lima devoted to helping people learn more about nature.

A modern planetarium is an especially terrific asset for the country, as evidence from many of Peru’s archaeological sites suggest that ancient Peruvian peoples used the stars above and our solar system to their benefit. Examples of places where these observations occurred include Machu Picchu and also the site of Chankillo, which is thought to be the site of the most ancient solar observatory in the Americas. Now the people of today’s Peru can also use a special tool to learn about what happens in the skies above. Read the rest of this entry »

Several days ago, I read a story about how Peru’s butterfly exports had increased 43% from January-April of this year. These are the butterflies that are pinned into glass frames for sale as gifts and souvenirs. I wondered if all of these butterflies included those that are exported illegally and those that are endangered. Questions of this kind were on my mind as just several days earlier my family had passed by a street vendor who sold animals illegally.

One of the animals was a baby monkey, caged and frightened. We live in the highlands region of Peru, so the monkey was far from its former home in the rainforest. My wife, who in the past worked as a biologist throughout Peru, told me that she thought this was an endangered monkey. As we walked home, I wished I had brought my camera. This I thought, is a story that needs to be pursued. Read the rest of this entry »

Not too many years from now, parents living in the little town of Alumbre, Peru will probably tell their young children that they remember the days before there was electricity. These “old-timers” will talk about how wind was once thought of as the enemy– blowing out the few candles that provided light as they struggled to finish their homework after dark, or while trying to finish weaving a sweater. The kids, like most, will probably shrug off these anecdotes of wisdom from the past, wondering how their parents could ever think of something as wonderful as wind as an enemy. Read the rest of this entry »

My family recently visited a place in Peru that we had wanted to visit for a long time. While not as famous as Machu Picchu, the Chavín de Huantar Ruins are quite fascinating in their own right. Most visitors after reading their guidebooks want to see a carved stone obelisk that sits at the center of underground passages in the “Old Chavín Temple.” Known as the “Lanzón,” the obelisk has various animal features, and is thought to have been worshiped as something of a nature god, or treated as an oracle by the people using Chavín. The outside of the Chavín Temple was decorated with carved stone heads, that likewise were anthropomorphic.

All of these mysterious features and others have lead archaeologists to believe that this was an important religious site to the Chavín culture, and also that the culture’s influence was widespread during its heyday from approximately 850 to 200 B.C. What is unclear though, is why the Chavín culture disappeared. I’m no archaeologist, but I did once work as a park ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. My experiences there give me some guesses as to why the civilization and culture might have disappeared at Chavín de Huantar. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: This article is part of an Ecoworldly series on the topic of bicycling. This week our writers are discussing the activity and its importance in a number of countries around the world. Please check at the bottom for links to more entries and check throughout the week for additional entries in this series.

In some places in Peru it is just as common to see people bicycling as it is driving cars. Most Peruvians cannot afford cars and for this reason, bicycles provide an excellent, inexpensive means of quick transportation. Peruvians also are masters at modifying their bicycles in creative ways so that they can be used to transport goods and tools for their work and businesses. Fruits, vegetables, construction materials, ice cream, meat, bananas, pets, and countless other items can be transported by bicycle, when a cart has been added. Unlike in the United States though, these aren’t your everyday bicycle carts. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine getting up in the morning, collecting the garbage in your home, and taking it outside. After opening your door, you see a person watching you intently from the corner of your street. You walk a few steps, and place your trash bags where they will eventually be picked up. No sooner than you turn your back, that eager person from the corner is making their way over to your refuse. Within moments they are rummaging through the waste. Searching for bottles and other items of value, you might occasionally see them kicking toward hungry street dogs to protect their bounty and themselves from a painful bite. While this scenario might seem ridiculous to you, it happens every day in Peru. The circumstances for why people in Peru collect re-usable and recyclable items in the trash is complex, intriguing, troublesome, and potentially wonderful. Read the rest of this entry »

As new camera technology becomes cheaper and better, rare animals in places like Peru’s rainforests may soon be photographed and documented more thanks to the efforts of wildlife biologists. These kinds of photographs are important because they can provide crucial evidence of where species of animals like jaguars roam, giving scientists, park managers, and conservation advocates the facts they need to argue for greater protection of specific habitats. It also gives conservation professionals knowledge of where to concentrate their efforts and research, and can likewise increase public awareness of interesting and endangered animal species.

In a paper published in the latest edition of Animal Conservation, researcher Mathias W. Tobler and several of his colleagues describe a study they conducted in an area of the rainforest in southeastern Peru. By experimenting with hidden “camera traps,” these scientists set out to inventory elusive, rarely seen large and medium-sized mammals that live in the Peru’s rainforests. What they discovered is both exciting and interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

Just like in Peter Matthiessen’s classic book At Play in the Fields of the Lord, the gut reaction of several tribal members living in a remote area of the Amazon Rainforest was to shoot arrows at what was most likely the first plane they had ever seen passing by. You can see this yourself in one of the amazing photographs taken recently by the Brazilian government’s office of Indian Affairs. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps encouraged after their recent success in hosting the European Union and Latin American and Caribbean Summit, the office of Peru’s President, Alan Garcia Peréz, announced last week that Peru would bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Never mind that the application deadline was in September of last year.

Critics of the plan emerged quickly, and Peru’s prime minister was equally fast to label the critics as “the same ones that some time ago said Peru couldn’t host the EU-LAC summit and were pessimistic when it was announced.” Peru’s current infrastructure does raise numerous doubts about how successful the Olympics could be in Peru. Lima would no doubt host the lion’s share of events, while Cuzco, Trujillo, Arequipa, and others cities might play a part as well. Traffic problems, environmental and social issues, and financial difficulties could all make the Olympics a disastrous and harmful event for Peru. But, also, despite what the critics might say, the move to bid for the Olympics might have been a brilliant and ingenious action thought up by President Alan Garcia’s staff. Read the rest of this entry »