When Laura finds Wayra and tries to put her on a leash, Wayra lashes out, and the wounds require stitches.īut Laura does not blame the puma.

But she cannot deal with her freedom, so she constantly circles the camp and becomes a danger. In one especially heartrending episode, Wayra does escape. You might wonder why they didn’t just let Wayra run free into the Bolivian jungle, but Wayra never had a mother to teach her to hunt and navigate the wilderness. One of Laura’s jobs is to take Wayra on daily runs, as pumas like to roam, but the big cat is almost too much for her to handle safely. Wayra distrusts people, and rightfully so, and she is kept in an enclosure where she is very unhappy. Over time, Laura-the author-bonds with Wayra, but the path is not an easy one. There, she was assigned to care for Wayra, a puma with a troubled past due to being a victim of the illegal wildlife trade which killed her mother and placed her in an abusive home as a kitten. It’s the true story of a young woman who, feeling like something was missing from her nice, safe life with a soul-crushing white-collar job, went on a trip to Bolivia and visited a ramshackle wildlife sanctuary. Set against a turbulent and poignant backdrop of deforestation, the illegal pet trade, and forest fires, The Puma Years explores what happens when two desperate creatures in need of rescue find one another.The Puma Years: A Memoir is my favorite book I’ve read this year. Most of all, there was the jungle-lyrical and alive-and there was Wayra, who would ultimately teach Laura so much about love, healing, and the person she was capable of becoming.

There were animal whisperers, committed staff, wildly devoted volunteers, handsome heartbreakers, and a machete-wielding prom queen who carried Laura through. The humans, too, were cause for laughter and tears. They weren't alone, not with over a hundred quirky animals to care for, each lost and hurt in their own way: a pair of suicidal, bra-stealing monkeys, a frustrated parrot desperate to fly, and a pig with a wicked sense of humor. And in Wayra, she made a friend for life.

Wide-eyed, inexperienced, and comically terrified, Laura made the scrappy, make-do camp her home.

Fate landed her at a wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the Amazon jungle where she was assigned to a beautiful and complex puma named Wayra. Laura was in her early twenties and directionless when she quit her job to backpack in Bolivia. In this rapturous memoir, writer and activist Laura Coleman shares the story of her liberating journey in the Amazon jungle, where she fell in love with a magnificent cat who changed her life.

The Puma Years by Laura Coleman