Would you like to live in a beautiful, secluded place in the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, surrounded by rolling hills and wildlife-rich tropical dry forest, as part of a fantastic multicultural team monitoring macaws?
Join the collaboration between the oldest wildlife rehabilitation center in the country and one of the longest-running parrot research groups in the Americas to learn a new set of skills and gain great field experience collecting field data to help make parrot conservation happen.
Come and join our team of dedicated volunteers!!
Volunteers should be self-disciplined, responsible, enthusiastic, and patient. You should also be able to tolerate moderate insect levels, and hot weather (85-90F/30-33C). You must also be able to get along well with others in a remote field setting.
Location
Bosque Escondido Wildlife Refuge, a 1,800 acre dry tropical forest in the Nicoya Peninsula is one of the two release sites owned and operated by Rescate Wildlife Rescue Center
Main entrance of “Bosque Escondido” wildlife reserve
Available Positions
We have two different types of positions that are available year-round.
Position #1:
Long-term volunteer assistant (6 weeks minimum, 2 months stay recommended)
Activities:
Volunteer activities: You will be trained to identify all parrots by sight and sound, monitor behavior of reintroduced parrots and macaws, climb trees to check macaw nests (Dec-May), conduct wild parrot censuses, locate foraging parrots. They will also help prepare food items and refill wildlife feeding stations plus quantify how much has been eaten. They will also help to enter data to computers.
Qualifications: (1) Previous field experience, (2) Previous experience working with birds, (3) Degree on Biology, Ecology, Forestry or related careers or in the last semesters, (4) Intermediate/advance Spanish level.
Additional Requirements: Good physical condition, able to carry a 40 lb (18 kg) pack over moderate terrain for up to 2 km, no fear of heights (Dec-May). Good disposition facing new and challenging situations, able to work in a team under stress. Have both live and accidents insurance coverage.
Cost: There is a daily payment to cover lodging expenses. Please contact us for more information.
Position # 2:
Short term volunteer assistant (12 to 30 day stay recommended)
Activities: These assistants will be quickly trained to identify all the local parrots by sight and become experts at parrot behavior monitoring in reintroduced wildlife feeding stations. They will also help prepare food items and refill wildlife feeding stations, quantify how much has been eaten. Due to the short length of stay, volunteers will have only minimal involvement in activities requiring higher training levels like parrot censuses and tree climbing. Assistants will also help with data entry.
Qualifications: Previous experience observing animals (captivity/wildlife), (2) appreciation for nature and wildlife, (3) basic knowledge of Spanish (not required but useful)
Additional requirements: Average physical condition, ability to walk 2 km over moderate terrain, good sense of observing animals, ability to stay seated for long periods of time, some background knowledge of birds in general.
Cost: There is a daily payment to cover lodging expenses. Please contact us for more information.
Accommodations
You will be staying in our new “Volunteers house”, which is four bedrooms building with a set of shared bathrooms/showers (two of each). Each room has a window, two beds, two shelves and one BIG fan. Building has wi-fi internet. Washing and dryer machine available.
Volunteers house at Bosque Escondido
Porch| Resting area in volunteers house at Bosque Escondido
Cost
Essentially, volunteering is free. We take care of research permit costs, cover the costs of all staff, work to maintain training material, and also deal with all correspondence and various aspects of project management. However, our budget does not extend to being able to pay for all aspects of volunteer participation. As such you only need to cover food, accommodation, and other services provided by the field station. The costs are very reasonable. The daily fee is according to the position and experience. Please contact us for more information.:
- Short-term volunteer assistant: $50 per night (min stay 12 days in the field)
- Long term volunteer assistant: $30 per night (min stay 6 weeks in the field)
*A one-time processing fee of $30 will be added for all volunteers.
This rate covers food, non-bar beverages, unlimited tea and coffee, and accommodations (bedding is provided). All volunteers will be charged an airport transfer to be picked up ($20) or dropped off ($10) at the airport plus an extra cost to be transported to the release site (private transportation or reduce cost transportation) in the Nicoya Peninsula. Once a volunteer was accepted, they will be sent an invoice by email from Texas A&M University. Upon receipt, the volunteer needs to pay 20% of the total cost of their stay. This non-refundable payment is required to hold the reservation for the assistant. The remaining 80% of the payment should be made at least two weeks before the assistant arrives at the release site. Arrangements can be made if assistants wish to pay in cash in the country. However, prior permission from the coordinator is needed. Changes to the daily fee may apply according to availability and season. Please, check our refund policy.
Domestic and international transportation fees to the release site are covered by each assistant.
How to apply
To apply please send an email to volunteering@themacawsociety.org
This email should contain the following:
- A letter of interest explaining why you want to work with us
- Your CV or resume
- Email addresses for at least 3 references
- The range of dates when you will be available and how long you can participate. For example, you may say something like “any 20-day period between March and July 2015”.
