Occurring in the fragile cloud forests of the Western Andes, the olinguito was “missed” by scientists for decades. The discovery of this new carnivore at the Mesenia-Paramillo nature reserve confirmed by Dr. Roland Kays of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and one of the olinguito’s discovering scientists, from photos taken by the reserve's park guards, was exciting news. For several months, one of our park guards, Ubiel Rendon, followed olinguitos through various forests in the region. He was able to find various places where they slept, specially high up in mature trees. Ubiel knew of a place where he use to hunt them and where large tracks of pristine forest occurred.
In 2015, THC received the support of SavingSpecies to acquire a plot of land now known as the Olinguito Nature Reserve. Not only did we acquire a forest were olinguitos thrive, but also one of the last remaining mature forests in the area. We hope to establish a field station in the area that will allow to study the olinguito and be able to asses the biodiversity in the area. Also, we are certain we will have interesting new discoveries in the following years.
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