Peru's Rainforest Mammals

Peru harbours some of the richest rainforests in the world, and its most southern Amazonian state, Madre de Dios, boasts many biodiversity world records. In Puerto Maldonado, the capital of Madre de Dios, the river Las Piedras is well known for its abundant fauna and has recently been scientifically proven to harbour over double the mammal densities of surrounding rainforest reserves. Las Piedras is also the longest and remotest in Madre de Dios, meandering 440 miles from its remotest headwaters to its confluence with the Madre de Dios at Puerto Maldonado. Far up river, on the banks of the upper Las Piedras, incredible to us in our microchip world, there are still un-contacted Indian populations hiding in isolation from the rest of the world. These small groups of Mashco-Piros still wander naked, hunting with longbow, collecting fruit, nuts and turtle eggs, whilst living in simple palm-leaf shelters. In 2002 the Alto Purus Indigenous Reserve was extended to protect the entire upper Las Piedras basin beyond the indigenous village of Monte Salvado, 220 miles from the mouth of the river. Half-way between Puerto Maldonado and the Alto Purus Indigenous Reserve, the locally owned Amazon Rainforest Conservation Centre, ARCC for short, was built in 2002 to protect 17,000 acres of the pristine rainforest surrounding the wildlife-rich Lake Soledad. Our tour will be based at the comfortable ARCC, where we will follow our naturalist guides on a variety of exciting excursions. Whilst ARCC offers some of the best rainforest mammal and bird watching in the Amazon Rainforest, mammals can still prove to be difficult to see at times. One can’st expect to see such large or numerous mammals as in Africa due to the low mammal density, the nocturnal habits of the majority of mammal species, and the dense rainforest vegetation. However during periods when mammals are proving difficult to spot, we will be kept entertained by the incredible diversity of other classes of vertebrates and invertebrates. While this tour’s focus and highlights hope to include threatened species such as Giant River Otters, Black Spider Monkeys and White-lipped Peccaries, we will also be looking at the plethora of birds, reptiles, plants and insects of this spectacularly-diverse rainforest.