It was this work, and the communities and the stories that she found there, that inspired her to start the Brighton-based organisation ONCA. In 2007 she went to Bolivia and joined the NGO Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi (CIWY), which manages three wildlife sanctuaries and gives homes to animals rescued from illegal wildlife trafficking. She studied English literature and art history at university and received a master’s in art history. Laura Coleman was born in Sussex, in the south of England. 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. 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 humour. 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 a memoir