1st Wildlife Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Release Conference in Costa Rica
By Pia Martin, DVM, Wildlife Vet for KSTR
Kids Saving the Rainforest wants to invite the whole Quepos Community to come, participate, and support the First Ever Wildlife Rescue, Rehabilitation, and Release Conference in Costa Rica.
It will take place from August 7 through the 11th, with participation of around 200 people from all over the country. We will have fieldtrips, presentations, posters, and workshops. To be a sponsor and support this exceptional event please write to [email protected], your help from $50 to $5000 will indeed help save the lives of many wild animals and help to release them back into the wild.
Apart from inviting the whole community, we have invited other rescue centers, researchers, vets, biologists, students, naturalists, NGOs, and the government. This is in order to gather the people working in this field and start sharing knowledge and experiences, nationally and internationally, as there is not a lot of published information on how to rescue, rehab, and release Neotropical wildlife species.
We are negotiating with a highly recognizable journal to publish all presentations from the Conference as a special issue on Neotropical Wildlife.
The whole event will be five days long.
The first day, August 7th, will start with special tour to Manuel Antonio National Park, (the second most visited park in the country) with beautiful rainforest, beaches and great biodiversity. In the afternoon, we will host a visit to the KSTR Wildlife Rescue Center and Sanctuary, 30 minutes away from Manuel Antonio, Quepos. The idea is to show the facilities such as kitchen area, clinic, and enclosures; and how routine procedures are done. That night, an Ice Breaker will get all attendees to meet and get to know each other at Hotel Gaia.
The Conference itself will take 3 days, from August 8th to August 10th at Best Western Villa Lirio Hotel in the heart of Manuel Antonio. This hotel is on the main road with a parking area and near the public bus stop, facilitating arrival from any other hotel in the area. The conference room is spacious, fitting up to 300 people, with air conditioning, and audiovisuals. They will provide lunch.
Throughout the 3 days, we will have 30 and 60 minute lectures from experts, poster sessions with single cases, short research projects or how-to-techniques, and round tables to give space for discussion and sharing of all topics possible. We are especially interested in topics like: how to raise a specific species and keep it wild, medical or surgical techniques, emergency protocols, common diseases and / or emerging diseases, release criteria, criteria to keep the animal in permanent captivity, animal welfare and behavior, and post-release studies.
On the last night, we will host a goodbye banquet with attendees and presenters; the site has yet to be determined.
After the conference days, we are planning on specific workshops such as: Fluid therapy, Environmental Enrichment, and First Aid Steps.
For more information about the Conference please write to [email protected].