Special Report: The Amazon Is the New Frontier for Deadly Wildlife Tourism

 On a wooden platform in a tiny village on the longest river in the world, a giant anteater slurps pink yogurt from a plastic bucket as a man shoves a selfie stick in its face.

A pair of blue macaws crunches on cheese puffs. A toucan nibbles a saltine cracker. Sixty tourists screech, squeal, and cackle as they paw at a menagerie of wild animals. Sloths cling to human necks. Monkeys scramble over heads and shoulders. On a bench two turtles strain for freedom under the weight of human hands.

While animals are passed among the crowd, camera shutters click, and selfie sticks jut out at all angles. A woman holds a juvenile caiman, mouth agape, next to the head of her infant child. A teenage girl chatters as she wraps an anaconda around her torso, fodder for a selfie video.

People throw tips in a bucket and head back down the platform stairs. They’ve had their fill, and manic excitement gives way to seeming indifference.

Spend days, even weeks, in the Amazon jungle and you may, if you’re lucky, see a wild sloth inching up a tree or catch the glow of a caiman’s eyes on the river at night. But coming face-to-face with any one of these animals is unlikely. All of them? Impossible.

Yet here atop this rickety platform on stilts along the banks of the Peruvian Amazon, such an experience is assured. This is a one-stop wildlife shop.

Puerto Alegría, a town with just 600 families, sits in a sun-drenched spot on the Amazon called Tres Fronteras—the Triple Frontier—where Peru, Colombia, and Brazil meet. Every day hundreds of tourists, mostly from the Colombian side of the river, arrive by boat, walk up wooden planks from the water to the shore, and clamor to hold and take photos with as many as a hundred captive wild animals of two dozen species.

The influx is an economic boon for Puerto Alegríans, at the ready with snacks and sodas, baskets for tips, and canteen shops filled with local crafts.

Wildlife tourism is big business, likely accounting for 20 to 40 percent of the global tourism industry’s annual value of $1.5 trillion, according to the World Tourism Organization.

Conservation and animal welfare groups agree that when an activity involving wildlife crosses the line from observation to interaction, it’s bad for the animals. In Southeast Asia riding elephants and petting captive tiger cubs, for instance, have drawn attention to the dark side of wildlife tourism.

Tourism in the Amazon is still in its infancy. In the huge Brazilian state of Amazonas, it accounts for just one percent of GDP. But prospering economies in Latin America and easier access through more frequent, affordable international flights mean that tourism—especially wildlife tourism—may be poised to explode.

The Amazon harbors more than 10 percent of the planet’s biodiversity—400 species of mammals, 200 species of reptiles, and 1,300 species of birds. Tourists generally have two options for experiencing this bounty: the authentic way or the quick way. To see the raw, wild Amazon, people typically embark on a jungle excursion that lasts at least three or four days and can cost hundreds of dollars. For travelers short on time and money, the alternative is a day tour. Offered by dozens of travel agencies in each port town, most of these hit several spots in one day, providing a quick taste of the jungle.

The Report has been collected from National Geography