Animal friendly pampas tour?

Can anyone recommend a pampas tour operator out of Rurre that respects wildlife. I do NOT want to see caimans and anacondas wrestled with or captured for my amusement. I also do NOT want to fish for piranha. I want to enjoy and appreciate the pampas without harassing the animals that live there. I've heard that many tours involve causing pain and distress to the wildlife for the benefit of picture taking tourists. I do NOT want to support that...please help someone? I will tip the guides well for NOT touching the animals.

Thanks!!

I do hope you will get replies.
I share your concern about the environment and the preservation of the nature. It is important to "spread the word", and it is sad that it is so difficult to get proper information about what to choose, when you want to be a responsible tourist.

Unfortunately the pampas tours from Rurrenabaque are of widely different quality. Some travellers want to touch and feed the wild animals, and some tour operators and guides give their visitors / clients what they want.

Of course, on the tour the guide have more influence than the operator back at the office. Some guides are freelance and work for varying operators. So in a way the choice of the guide may be more important than the choice of the operator.
And next to the guide: Choose your fellow travellers with care. The cheapest tour operator may not attract people you prefer.

There are many - too many - pampas tour operators in Rurrenabaque. Some days some of the tour operators do not have success with 'catching' enough of tourists, and they have to 'sell' their clients to another operator.
So when choosing a pampas tour operator: Be sure that the operator itself undertakes the described tour.

The pampas and the animals there are threatened, but few cares and fewer do something active.
I can refer to the thread "Impact on rurrenabaque pampas tours", 25-Sep-2007.

To learn about tours and tour operators search for: Rurrenabaque tours
Or: Rurrenabaque + tours pampas

For the pampas tours an operator with a good reputation is Bala Tours.

I hope you are prepared to do some investigation yourself. Check the information on the internet and on location. Here at the net for instance search for: "Bala Tours" Rurrenabaque
(With quotation marks as shown, to handle the words Bala Tours as a 'phrase' (term)).
(And with plus signs as shown, to return posts containing both the phrase and the word).
When including Rurrenabaque (or just Rurre) in the search, you eliminate results not dealing with Bolivia.

Use the same search technique here at the Thorn Tree, at Google (or another search engine), and at Google Blog Search.
(Note that you can choose "Sort by date". In www.google.com by using "Advanced Search" to choose "Date (how recent the page is)" for instance "past month". Make a search, and you will now notice the line "Web > past month Show options..." Click at "Show options...").

Via Google Blog Search you can find recent reports about Bala Tours and other tour operators.
And when searching for Rurrenabaque pampas (and sort by date) you can find all recent blog entries, and in that way learn about different tour operators.

Another pampas tour operator positive mentioned is the Mashaquipe Ethno-Eco Tourism. But this is a smaller operator and relevant reports are from 2007. (And I do not know about the status of today):
Blog: Swimming with dolphins in the Pampas, 08/10/2007.
TT threads:
Rurrenabaque - pampa trips, 30-Oct-2007. Post #2 by sbwaxman.
Supporting indiginoues communities in Rurrurenbaque, 09-Aug-2007. Opening post by leebs, post #5 by kaililynn and post #6 by jessfozz.

A quotation from the last-mentioned: "Only downside is they do not have their own lodge in the Pampas, .."

I also mention these links because they describe how much time you can spend on finding a usable operator.

From the blog "Swimming with dolphins ..":
"We actually spent a whole day shopping round the agencies (save a long siesta when it was too hot to do anything), to find one that suited our agreed criteria". And more quotation: "We often tried to trap the agency by asking if we could hold the animals. About half of them gave suitable answers. Some said no way José, some said .."

From the TT thread "Supporting indiginoues communities ..":
"I think I visited every single tour office in the town trying to find a company whose profits go directly to the indigenous community and who genuinely respect the environment. I speak Spanish fluently, so was able to grill each of the companies quite thoroughly about their ethics."

A different option is to drop the pampas and go into the jungle instead.

Unlike the pampas tours most of the tours and lodges in the jungle (the rainforest) are recommendable.
The jungle/rainforest is south and west of Rurrenabaque (inclusive a part of the Madidi National Park), and the tours go by boat and foot.
The pampas tours go to the area of the Yacuma River, north east of Rurrenabaque and Reyes, and the tours start with a long drive on a bumpy road.

The jungle and the pampas are entirely different, and the tours are entirely different experiences.
A tour in the jungle is absolutely recommendable, but the benefit depends a lot on your expectations. What each individual person regards as a good experience is different. All people are not alike.
See the thread Parque Manu or Parque Manini (= Madidi), 24-Oct-2008.

If you have the time and money you can do both types of tours. If not, you have to choose.
Do you really want to go to the pampas, or would a tour in the jungle be better ?

For the jungle you can choose an operator with its own lodge, like Chalalán and San Miguel del Bala. Or you can choose an operator with a camp in the jungle.

A recent blog about San Miguel del Bala: Jungle Trip... Wild.

For general information about Rurrenabaque and tours I can refer to my post in the thread "Rurrenabaque tours", 08-Jul-2008.
(In this post from 2008 I mention TT tags. Since then this TT forum has dropped the use of tags).

Whatever you choose: It would be nice, if you could come back here in the Bolivia forum and tell about your experiences.

Wow that was one of the most thorough and thoughtful replies i've seen on a forum. thanks for your time. i have written Bala tours and they assured me their guides do not feed or touch the wildlife. Can anyone verify this? Their website does however list "pirana fishing" as part of the itinerary which i will NOT engage in. I grew up fishing and I know it causes pain and suffering for fish. If the indigenous people there fish for food I understand but tourists catch and releasing fish for "fun" in unnecessary and unethical. Perhaps I can modify my itinerary if I go with Bala.

I second your comments about reply #1.

I joined a Pampa tour as well as a "Tropical rainforest" tour and can just recommend the second one. The first was with Amazonico and therefore they have family bond with Fluvial we saw a lot of wildlife but in the non-recommendable way. The second tour was with Madidi Travel, a Tour operator which was forced to step out of the Madidi Park. They now co-operate with local communities and have their own reserve 2hs north east of Rurre which they alone care for and conservate. It is like I would imagine the rainforest, but with more lakes and more mosquitos.
I can fully recommend it. You see animals by chance (all species of the area are there except the pink river dolphin), but you definitely see some and you can be sure they won't be mistreated. The rest is eco-lodge style but without going into villages and so is the price too.
But it is definitely worth it. We've been there just recently (the worst time of the rainy season with hardly any chance of watching animals) and we encountered a meeting with a free living 5m anaconda and not with the typical out-of-the-bag-anaconda which we got shown on the pampa tour.