The Puma Years, A Memoir by Laura Coleman: book review

The Puma Years, A Memoir of Love and Transformation in the Bolivian Jungle (2021) is set in a wildlife sanctuary in the Amazon rainforest in Bolivia from 2007.

British Laura Coleman is twenty-four years old when she goes backpacking in Bolivia and gets a job in a wildlife sanctuary for an animal welfare charity. She is assigned to care for Wayra, a four-year-old puma – also known as a panther, a cougar, or a mountain lion.

Amongst a team of local staff and international volunteers, experts and novices, she makes friends with humans and animals, including monkeys, parrots, ostriches, and jungle pigs, but not so much with the tarantula spider in the shower.

Initially, the story focuses on people and relationships, before it moves to the Amazon jungle and the star of the story – the wild cat. Wayra hisses and grumbles and scares people, but mostly she purrs and sleeps. I like the section about Laura and Wayra swimming in the lagoon.

Then Wayra runs away. Laura leaves too in 2008 and subsequently makes frequent returns to the sanctuary.

This is not just an animal story – it is one of love for animals, and the special bond between a wild cat and a human.

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MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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