Please "Adopt" us for the Holidays

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Please consider the gift of life and hope to our rescued animals this holiday season!
Years ago I "adopted" a whale and the group that was protecting them sent me photos and updates, I really looked forward to hearing about where "my" whale had been seen, how far he had traveled. It was fun and I learned all about whales. Now we have blogs and internet to help us learn about wild animals and the joys of supporting such efforts :)

Adoption is a great option for those who would like to support our efforts...We have released 5 sloths to date and several this past year. Each sloth that comes into our program is here for a reason: an injury, abandoned, fell from a tree, fights, burns and mistreated by humans.

All of them have to be evaluated by our veterinarian, fed and cared for.

This can add up and we are looking for support for our various sloths.

I will give you some good news!! We have donations for Millie and Georgie enclosures, and will begin these in Jan. Thank you!!

Adoption certificates will be sent along with a photo of your favorite sloth,

Twili, Millie, Milo and Georgie. (I finally found a nice certificate-one that I can print up here...)

Eight years ago we began accepting toucans in need, and we have become known for the excellent work we do recovering these beautiful birds. We have had to say no to some animals, but we will never say no to the toucans. Currently we have 35 in our care. We are setting up a breeding program for release, and have been successful in reproducing the Emerald Toucanets.
Owl Fund! Please do an office pool, or a challenge for support, match the donation, for our 15 owls. We have to purchase from a poultry farm 700 chicks a month to feed them along with supplementing them with rats and mice that we breed here. Some of the most beautiful raptors in Costa Rica, and not many rescue centers accept these owls. We receive owl babies since they are very difficult to raise, and every adult owl that has come into the program has come with severe injuries that require extensive orthopedic surgeries and a long recovery process.

Many of you contributed to Isadora Spider monkey's enclosure and I can tell you that she is so happy and appreciative of her new space. Thank You!! She needs constant food since she is so High Energy, to put it frankly, she eats like a horse! Much of the fruit that we purchase weekly goes to her, little miss piggy. She is doing great and is a joy, loves to visit when we do tours and always shows off her acrobatic skills. Adopting Issy would help us keep up the fruit supply!

Jou Jou is just like Issy in a way, constant energy, totally recuperated and loves her new enclosure!


Pokey is back from the vet's, he lived with them for about a month...now you can imagine if your dog or cat stayed at the vets for that long, you would have a huge bill, well, we considered this a huge bill, but compared to the states, this is not costly at all. $120.00 for all his treatment, and as you can see he is doing so much better after his horrible infection from some animal attacking him. He is finally getting new quills and fur, but will probably have a bald backside :( We hope Quilla our beautiful girl will fall in love with him anyway. Pokey still needs medical treatment, so please consider adopting him!

Adopt an endangered Scarlet Macaw! Our macaws are at breeding age, and we are going to set them up for breeding for release. Young macaws will be placed with other release programs in the country. So, if you are a bird person, please help us support the 30 some parrots in our care! The seed mix and nuts that we feed, (along with fruits and vegetables) are imported, and anything imported is extremely expensive, We use a 23 kilo sack, around 50lbs per week, and this costs around $48, add in the nuts and we are up to $60.

300 pounds of Papaya per week, 20lbs of green beans and 25 lbs of carrots!

Farmers market fund! We can easily spend $150 per week on fresh fruits and vegetables for all the birds and animals.

Overwhelmed? I am, whew! I include all these figures so that folks have an understanding of what is involved in the day to day life at the Toucan Rescue Ranch. It's a constant influx of animals, food, bills, medicines, vet checks, operations, love and endless sleepless nights.

Please help us to keep up the momentum, continue to be able to rescue and care for Costa Rican wildlife, begin our breeding programs, continue our educational programs in the local schools and, I will end with a quote from a recent visitor, "I have been to other rescue centers around the world and this is one of the best. Their care for the animals is exquisite, the animals have space, enrichment and the place is sparkling clean."

Donations can be made to Pay Pal on our website, then please send us an e-mail to let us know who you would like to adopt, or what program your donation is helping.

Thank you from all of us, Leslie, Jorge and all the birds and animals of the Toucan Rescue Ranch and may you have a wonderful holiday season filled with joy and a great New Year.

Toucan Mom, Sloth Mom and now Owl Mom

We have been super busy with Raptors lately, this young Spectacled owl came in two weeks ago, from the Caribbean side of the country. Some folks found her on the ground and took her in. The problem is that they also clipped all her wings. Unfortunately when this happens it can take a year to grow out...so she is stuck here with us. We have a large adult Spectacled owl that I have always wanted company for, and indeed he has accepted her well and they are together in a huge enclosure, but for now I have her in a large cage within the cage while we make sure that she is adjusting and eating well. This is the type of situation, that if they had left the baby alone, in the trees, the parents would come and feed it. Education is very important and we will be talking about her to our visitors. She is very large, like 15 inches, and looks like cotton candy with claws.


This Black and White owl also came from the Caribbean with horrible injuries in the wing...all the tendons and blood vessels were gone, so the vet decided the only way of fighting infection and problems would be to amputate the wing, so he survived the surgery and is actually doing very well. He is the third owl that we have with an amputated wing. It's a long recovery process, which we are just beginning. Once he heals from surgery we will be doing extensive therapy with him to re-gain his balance. This marks owl number 14 in our program! Amazing creatures that I never imagined I would be working with :)



Our Barred Hawk is getting along really well, eating tons, and adjusting to life at the ranch. I was able to speak with the veterinarian who initially treated him and we spent a long time on the phone discussing his situation. He has actually been in captivity for 6 months now. He was found on a farm with his "elbow" shattered. The vet in Turrialba had the bird with him for a few months, then they sent it to a macaw rescue where they had him in a huge flight and there they realized that he really cannot fly. Apparently that is why they asked me to take him. I was under the impression that he might be able to fly when I accepted him, for possible release. I did a flight test in our large flights and he flutters down to the ground. He is able to move and use the wing, but not sustain flight, or hunt. Very sad. I had my biologist friend come check him, as well as my vet, and another friend, everyone has the same conclusion....he can probably fly a bit, but not well enough to hunt...one friend even suggested that his wound looked like a small pistol shot from a 22. I asked the vet about this and he said very likely. His scientific name is Leucopternis princeps, so we named him Prince.


The Toucan babies are now juveniles and full of energy, they spent a few weeks in a smaller cage outside, getting used to the elements and now are in one of the small flights. They cried all day every time they saw me, begging for me to feed them, but they can feed themselves now, so I just went in to visit with them :)


Also new to the Ranch are these two Emaciated Red-Lored Amazons. They were taken out of a very bad situation and came in literally starved to almost death. They have not stopped eating in 7 days and barely bring their heads out of the food bowls. Soon they will figure out that there is more food coming each day and settle down. When this happens they usually start to shed the feathers and grow beautiful new ones...good thing, because once again...you guessed it, horrible wing clips.



Remember Charley the Scarlet macaw? Well look closely, she is finally using her foot to hold herself up and perch!! Only one foot works, but as you can see she is getting along nicely. She now climbs up and down her cage and gets plenty of exercise like this. (scroll thru previous blogs to read her story)

We are working on constuction of Enclosures!!! Tomorrow morning we have ground breaking for Jou- Jou the Kinkajou's palace, and then we finally got the permits back from the Municipality to make a huge enclosure for Isadora Issy the spider monkey...hopefully she will be as thrilled as we are. Thanks to many many donations from our visitors and followers we are making wonderful habitats for these two lucky ones!!

I will send photos of these habitats when finished, and now we have a new challenge, funding for Prince and his large flight that we will need to build! It never ends.....but just in case you are wondering if I ever say no to anything, in the middle of all these new arrivals I got an emergency call from Fish and Wildlife here asking if I could take in several small parrots and amazons that were all confiscated out of some trafficers house. We were waiting for the owl to return from surgery, and trying to accomodate all the new arrivals, so I actually said, no I'm sorry...we are full for now!