Antoine Mellon ’19, a junior studying world languages, was awarded a Maguire and Irby Family Foundation Public Service Fellowship for summer 2017 from the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility at SMU. As a result, he spent the summer as a volunteer at Parque Ambue Ari, a wildlife center in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, rehabilitating wild animals rescued from trafficking and taking amazing photos. He says it was an “unforgettable” experience. “Never before had I met such an open group of people, all with a common love of animals and volunteering.”
Here’s an excerpt from one of his posts for the SMU Adventures blog:
The past two months at Ambue Ari have gone by unbelievably fast. It seems like just yesterday that I arrived in the park, and listened in awe as people casually talked about walking their pumas or jaguars in the middle of the jungle. I can’t believe how quickly I took part in those conversations without realizing how crazy and amazing the work we were doing really was.
I had the opportunity to help Wayra move from a small cage into an enclosure that felt more like a small jungle surrounded by some fencing.
Read more at SMU Adventures.
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Saving big cats in the Bolivian jungle
Antoine Mellon ’19 spent the summer in Bolivia, rehabilitating wild animals rescued from trafficking. He says it was an “unforgettable” experience. “Never before had I met such an open group of people, all with a common love of animals and volunteering.”