As mentioned in my previous post Arriving in La Fortuna, a fun way to get between La Fortuna and Monteverde is to use the Jeep-Boat-Jeep system where you have transport on each side of Lake Arenal and take a boat across the lake. Since I had the rental car on this trip I did not do this, I drove the perimeter of the lake which was also quite beautiful. This option afforded me the opportunity to stop in Cañas and check out Centro de Rescate y Santuario Las Pumas.

Something interesting about Costa Rica is that they do not have zoos, in fact they are illegal. They do however allow for rescue centers and sanctuaries. When animals cannot be reintroduced back into the wild, they permit these facilities to care for the animals and they serve as educational hubs where people can learn more about the animals. This is where I was able to see a jaguar for the first time. This particular rescue was somewhat off the main tourist path so it was much quieter, but what that also meant was the animals were not being startled by all the human noise and activity. This made it much more enjoyable and easier to see the animals.

This was a great place to see parrots and toucans much closer than in the wild where you would need binoculars, a spotting scope, or a high-magnification lens with a camera. Here are some of the beautiful bird species I saw walking through the sanctuary.

This facility is fairly large with the rescue portion being considerably larger than the sanctuary. This makes sense given the primary objective is to rescue and rehabilitate the animals then return them to the wild whenever possible. This portion of the facility is closed to guests, but there is still a lot to see. After the birds I moved onto the large cats. I will be the first to say, seeing these amazing animals so close was both a rare and unique opportunity. All that separate us was a fence, so when they want to be seen they can come up quite close, or retreat to their perch or other parts of their respective spaces.

Gaia was the first large cat I saw, she was young, playful and curious, willing to following along side the fence while I walked around the perimeter of her space.

My next encounter was with Bruno - a 13+ year old Puma. He was majestic, his energy was palpable, the images I took capture his essence as much as any photo can relative to real life experience. His background unfortunately all too common, hunters killed his mother, capture him and sold him off to become a tourist attraction. Because he kept in human presence from a young age, he was not able to return to the wild without posing a potential risk.

The last of the large cats I saw at this location was Celeste, a 2 year old Jaguar. Similar to Bruno, Celeste was found as a young cub with her mother having been killed for hunting domestic animals. While the specific details are different the through line remains, humans killing the mother, leaving a young cub to be handled by humans and breaking a sacred connection to the wild in early development. Celeste was much further away and didn’t want to come down from her elevated perch but I was able to get a couple images.

After the large cats there were some other mammals to visit. Below are some images of a Collared Peccary, a red deer and white deer.

Because this sanctuary serves as an educational resource, there were also a lot of cool murals and education content. And if you know me at all, there’s gotta be some trash images.

Lastly, a very cool way to have an animal selfie without having the actual animal selfie.