New arrivals and fun visitors!

Meet Andy sloth!  Andy is our first three toed sloth to arrive at the Toucan Rescue Ranch.  He was found on the ground after a couple of males were fighting over a female, his mom, who lost him in the fight and took off from the males and the area.  Very sad, but fortunately someone found him and he is now safe and doing well here with us.  He is so different from the two toed's it's like having a completely different species.  Very slow, only eats leaves and is more awake during the day.  We will keep you posted on his progress.  Initially he was very weak, but with some good formula he is now really doing well.

Ty is really climbing and doing well, he has an obsession with his blankets and tries to take them with him when he climbs!  Twili also just started to climb the perch, so they are learning to share some space!

This poor keel billed toucan was found on the ground in the town near our farm by some of the children.  The mother called us, and we transported him to the Toucan Rescue Ranch.  He came in totally blind from the lacerations on his face and eyes.  We are not sure what these were caused from.  Initially it looked like someone had trapped him in chicken wire (I have seen similar cuts like this from the thin wire) or maybe he was in a fight with another toucan.  After a long recovery period, I am happy to report that he has gained his vision back in one eye.  The other eye keeps changing daily, and he might be able to see something now.  We are waiting for the next vet visit to confirm his progress.

If he recovers sight in both eyes we will happily take him to the farm to release!  Keeping our fingers crossed.

We have many wild birds that live and visit our property, this is a young blue grey tanager.  We found her on the ground, the parents would fly around and come feed her, but it was obvious that she was getting very tired and weak, so we found this abandoned clay colored robin nest, and put her in it near the parents, up off the ground.   They came and fed her for two days, and she left flying with them!

Our good friends, Frank Todd (of penguin fame) Jerry Jennings (famous toucan breeder and conservationist) and Paul Bratescu, professional photographer all visited.  They were here with us for several days, traveled around and returned and now it is weird that they are gone!  We had some great late night conversations about birds, breeding and conservation, I always learn so much from them we enjoy the visits.  Here are some photos of them at the farm and of some of the animals on the farm, that I took.  We had a great few days, monkeys, sloths (5 in one day) toucans and more!



Find the sloth hidden in the bromeliads!



Frank Todd had some photo sessions with Quilla the porcupine and Georgie our sloth!  They posed very nicely for him.  Quilla needed some kisses in between shots, take a look!  Enjoy the blog!  Remember, your kindness and generosity with funding keep us going and able to received these  injured animals, please consider adopting an animal or bird in our program.  On the blog you will find a tab for adoptions.  Thank You!!

Another sloth release and a rollercoaster month!

The weather has been very strange this summer, one minute warm and normal for the time of year, another day raining like rainy season, misting, and the last several days horrible winds and rain. Very atypical. We received an early morning call from the head of Sinac/Minae...he was on his way to our house with a sloth that he had just rescued from someones house. The sloth was probably trying to get out of the storm as well, and ended up in this house. The sloth was basically fine, except for these lacerations on his face that we quickly attended to. Interesting to note that all the director had to do was drive another 10 min. up the hill to the ranger station and could of released the sloth there himself...but there are several circumstances: tecnically you are not allowed to release animals into a National Park, and second, he was being driven by the messenger in a small sedan, and the messenger had to get back to work. Minae has very few cars for rescues and use by their staff. So we decided to take him to the farm to release once the weather calmed down and we could make it over the mountain pass safely...so for two days he hung out in a tree close to our creek.


We decided to paint his toenails red so that we could try to identify him if we see him again at the farm. I went yesterday and could not find him...so he is happily back in the forest!

This is the 6th sloth we have RELEASED!!

Fortunately this one was very easy.

During the stormy days our at home sloths were all worked up as well, keeping me up all night, traveling from carrier to perching tree to couch and never wanting to settle down. They hate the wind. One night Milo was very upset in his kennel, so I finally moved him to the couch where he is most comfortable and I woke up the next morning to find he had hauled everything that was on the couch on top of him and was at the bottom of this bucket all covered up. Milo is due to be moving outside in the next month when his enclosure is built...so hopefully he will adapt!!

If you look very closely you can see a sloth nose sticking out under the yellow stuffed animal!

Whimsey our large male keel billed toucan that is the official greeter of The Toucan Rescue Ranch now has a wife! We put him in the larger enclosure (inside a small cage) to get to meet the 3 young keel billed toucans, and this one chose him!

It took us a couple of days to figure out which little one kept paying attention to him, and taking food out of his mouth that he was offering in a very flirty way, but we finally did and now they seem happy with each others company! Hopefully in a year or two, when she is older we will have little toucan babies that we can send to the release program. We have several pairs of toucans that seem very interested in the nest logs this year, so we are keeping our fingers crossed!

Jorge Corrales on the left, our biologist friend and Landon Jones on the right.

Speaking of Releases, we have made contact with Landon Jones, a PhD student from the University of Lousiana, Fulbright Grantee, who is in Costa Rica for 1 1/2 years studying Collared Aracaris and Toucans in Turrialba. He is putting radio transmitters (like a gps) on the backs of aracaris and tracking them. We are working together and he will be of great help with our future releases. We tried releasing this aracari, but sadly he did not make it and was predated by some mammal. The research team found him after being out for about 1 week. We were all very sad, we are all learning as we go, as no one has ever released toucans before...but we have learned a tremendous amount and will be making many changes for future releases. The good news is that we now have a way to track our birds and this is a HUGE component of our program that we are really looking forward to exploring.

Landon is also studying seed dispersal in toucans, and having our captive population here will help him take some valuable notes and we can help with his study. Very Exciting!!

Happy Birthday Elena! In the middle of all our guests, tours, animal happenings and daily life here at The Toucan Rescue Ranch we actually hosted our first Birthday party for our friends daughter. I have to tell you, I was exhausted and very nervous, especially when they showed up with balloons and a piñata, but Jorge was a champ and hung the piñata away from the animal cages and everyone had a very good time!

My wonderful Aunt and second cousin came to visit and help me out after my arm surgery (from the sloth bite). They had scheduled their trip for Sarah's my second cousins 16th birthday, and they ended up staying with us hardly getting out and helping with all the chores and babysitting the baby sloths since I was not feeling that great. We managed to escape one day and took them on our favorite day trip: Riverboat on the Sarapiqui river. We have made this trip twice now and each time we have seen different things. Lots of birds, monkeys, sloths and bats! Here are some photos from the trip.
We saw two different types of these small bats, amazing, they make formations on the bark of the trees and move around to ward off predators!

Adorable mother and baby three toed sloth at our farm.Amazon Kingfisher

Sarah helped me organize our photo collection of many of our Released animals! It's actually amazing how many animals we have released...I tend to focus more on the ones that are here, and their care, but folks always ask about Releases, so now we will have this posterboard of Releases, it turned out really very nice!

A very Special Thank You to the Lincoln School first graders! Their 4 classes came to visit and at Christmas time they did some very special fund raising and are donating enough money to build the Sloth Enclosure for Milo!!! Hurray!! Thank you soooooooo much!! We are so proud of their efforts. They are continuing their support with old newspaper collection, old towels and sheets and nuts, and we always need for the parrots!

So, this past month we have had our highs and lows, and I will end with a very sad low. This beautiful Tamandua arrived from Turrialba about a month ago. I am sparing you the other side of her face, as it had a horrilbe machete chop, all across the nose, up to her eye and nasal passage. She passed away the next day from a ruptured pancreas. Seems like someone had her in very bad conditions and with a horrible diet. We could of healed the external wound, but the internal ones we were not able to heal unfortunately. I had written to several vets in the states and I am thankful that each one wrote back with extensive information on their diets...and for that I am grateful and will be ready when and if we ever receive another one.

Thank you all for your continued support and for following our blog, please pass it along, post on Facebook and share our work!!

Here's to a Happy Spring!

Adopt Jou-Jou the Kinkajou!

About four days ago, a man that Jorge knows at the farm called us to say that he had found a baby Kinkajou on the ground several months ago. He took it home and was raising it, but that he needed help and wanted to see if we would accept the animal. We talked about it and said yes, that was fine. I expected the Kinkajou to be healthy, and getting bigger and I assumed that is why he wanted to give it up, since it was no longer a baby, nocturnal and can be a real handful. So, you will understand when I prepared a large kennel, and sent Jorge up to the highway to a drop off point so that he could receive it. About an hour before they were suppose to meet, the guy calls us and says, "the kinkajou is very sad, not doing well at all"
I called back to clarify and ask more questions, but that is all he could say.



Jorge took off to go pick up the Kinkajou, returned home with tears in his eyes and said, "Look at this, how can anyone have an animal in these conditions, call the vet immediately!" I took one look at the poor little animal and decided we had to get her out of that stupid crate as soon as possible, so Jorge went to get some large wire cutters and we cut her out. She was in shock, freezing cold, and biting her tail, as she did not know what she was doing. I called the vet and said, please hurry she is more dead than alive...

We got to work quickly, she was wet and horribly soiled, we dried her off in the sun, tried to give some hydrating fluids and she was not doing well at all. Heating pad, more fluids and warmth for about an hour and she finally looked up and the color started coming back to her skin. By then the vet showed up and did a good check on her. We have started antibiotics and now have a protocol for the Kinkajou...our first.

All through the day she would sleep and wake up and eat a little fruit and each time she was looking better, so the initial scare of immediate death was over, and I was greatly relieved. She even bit me at one point when I touched her feet. As you can see in the photos, she has sores all over her feet and tail, from the wet and dirty conditions that she was kept in, so we are also treating these!



Last night I woke up at 3am to check on her and she had not eaten, but when I held her she did eat some fruit and was hungry, so that was a good sign.

And as you can see this morning, she is hungry and looking at all her food options! Still sleeping lots, which is to be expected, as well as the fact that they are nocturnal, but overall has made great progress.

She is skin and bones, completely emaciated, so diet is going to be very important, not only for her development, but also for her fur....which is not soft, and lacking in spots. She should have a good solid coat of honey colored fur.



According to my Costa Rican mammal book, the word Kinkajou originated with indigenous people of Brazil. It is also know as a honey bear, and the Latin name, Potos Flavus meaning Yellow drinker.
They belong to the same family as the raccoon, have a prehensile tail and are arboreal.

So please "Adopt" little Jou-Jou for the holidays, we will send you a nice certificate, 5x7 photo and have regular updates on this blog about her! $100 donations can be made to pay pal, on the website, and e-mail me the address of who the Adoption Certificate should be made out to and sent!

A wonderful holiday gift, knowing that you are helping with her needs. Or if you have another animal in mind of course this would also be welcomed, you can "Adopt" one of the Sloths, Toucans, Parrots, Issy the spider monkey or Quilla the porcupine or one of the many owls!

I thought that maybe we would receive a phone call from the guy asking how she was doing, but he never called, just asked us to "save her" and I am happy to report that indeed she was saved, half an hour longer in that condition and she would of been gone for good. She decided to live and we are happy for her.

Thank you all for your support!

P.S. With the kind help of two friends of The Toucan Rescue Ranch, the amazon in the previous post is now having blood tests done and various other lab work to try and determine the cause of the air sac problems! She is currently living at the vets and everyone is falling in love with her since she is so friendly and talks non-stop! Thank you all for your support, it means the world to us and our animals!

Thanks to Cornerstone Builders-Atlanta!

Thanks so much to Cornerstone Builders in Atlanta!

My brother and his wife, David and Jenny Hutchison run this great re-model company in Atlanta. They are extremely creative and do lovely additions on historical homes.

Check out their website at http://www.cornerstone-atlanta.com/

After coming to visit with their three adorable girls they went back home and decided that they would like to help with donations! So, here are the names of their very nice clients who have donated to The Toucan Rescue Ranch. Hopefully one day they can all come down and visit!

The Stouffer Family, The Aliffi Family, Claude and Linda Terry, The Tsiotras-Toktay Family, Annalisa Bracco, Cheri and Jim Hutchens, The Crawford Family, Paula Vaughan,

The Dourron Family. A huge Thanks goes to you from all of us here at The Toucan Rescue Ranch!

Here are my nieces helping chop fruit in the kitchen.