I hope they get something out of it, realize how different the world can be. They're certainly enjoying the lizards. Wild ginger grows in abundance. El Yunque is home to the endangered Puerto Rican parrot, the most threatened of the 144 animal species here. Once numbering in the hundreds of thousands throughout Puerto Rico, their population dropped to just 17 birds by 1975.
Scientists blame the decline on the loss of habitat and hunting.
A recovery program raised the number to 47 in the wild before Hurricane Hugo struck in 1989. More than half of the bright green, 12-inch birds died in the hurricane, but there are now 22 pairs living in the wild and an additional 100 birds in captivity. Archaeologists also work here, studying mysterious petroglyphs carved into rocks by Tainos long before Puerto Rico was colonized by the Spanish. Logging banned The U.S. Forest Service soon took over management of the reserve's original 12,000 acres, which remains mostly virgin forest. Unlike in many U.S. national forests, logging is banned.