A wildlife rescue center in Rio de Janeiro is giving animals a second chance after they’ve been torn from the Atlantic Forest by poachers, a Mongabay short documentary showed.

At the Vida Livre (Free Life) Institute, the team of volunteer veterinarians and biologists rehabilitate thousands of wild animals — from parrots with broken beaks to newborn armadillos and drugged monkeys — helping them recover so they can be returned to their natural habitat.

In September 2024, two capuchin monkeys were brought in after staff at the Rio Botanical Garden noticed unusual behavior in the primates. Blood tests confirmed they’d been given sedatives, which poachers often sneak into treats like bananas to subdue their victims. In March 2025, another two arrived in the same condition.

“When they arrived, they were very uncoordinated,” Roshed Seba, the president of the Vida Livre Institute, told Mongabay in a video interview. “They were evaluated by the vet and had their blood taken.” They were also given food and water to help them recover.

The institute, which turns 10 this year, has treated more than 13,000 animals. Most are native to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, including sloths, owls, anteaters, boas, toucans and even pumas.

One toucan lost half of its upper beak during an attempted capture by traffickers. After its rescue, the team used a 3D printer to make a prosthetic beak, allowing it to eat and resume its normal functions.

In another case, a sloth was drugged the same way as the monkeys. “Imagine drugging a sloth,” Seba said. “It almost died.”

Wildlife traffickers often use social media to sell animals as pets. Birds, especially male songbirds, are the most trafficked for their songs. Without them in the wild to reproduce, the wild population is weakened and the species’ reproductive capacity diminishes.

“Wildlife trade has more impacts than people imagine,” Juliana Machado Ferreira, the executive director of Freeland Brasil, a nonprofit fighting wildlife trafficking, told Mongabay. “Apart from the individual animal who suffers greatly, we also lose pollinators, seed dispersers, animals that have an ecological role in nature.”

Illegal wildlife trade ranks as the world’s fourth most lucrative international organized criminal enterprise, behind drugs, weapons and human trafficking. “Wildlife trafficking can only exist in conjunction with other crimes such as fraud, forgery, smuggling, criminal association, among others,” Ferreira said.

The Vida Livre institute says it hopes to educate the public about the harm caused by buying birds or monkeys as pets. And for the wildlife rehabilitated at the center, the goal is always to release animals back into the wild to live in freedom in their natural habitat. “I would love for the institute to be empty,” Seba said, “and to be only dedicated to talking about the beauty of Brazil’s fauna to inspire people.”

Banner image: A young orange-spined hairy dwarf porcupine (Sphiggurus villosus) rescued by the Vida Livre institute. Image by Rafael Bacelar for Mongabay.