Rainforest Presentation and Visiting Vets!

Once again Lincoln School first graders have been very involved with the Toucan Rescue Ranch.  They collected a truck load of old newspapers for us to use in our cages and they put on this tremendous Rainforest Production.  Unfortunately I could not load a video, but they told stories, sang songs and danced away to benefit the Toucan Rescue Ranch!!

The theater was packed, I attended with a toucan, an owl, Georgie the sloth and Twili the little baby sloth.  The teachers are incredible at Lincoln, so involved and truly supportive.

Thank you so much!!

We had a group of veterinarians visiting from Venezuela, and Minaet/Sinac asked if I could do a tour with emphasis on how to handle wild animals...so off we went enclosure by enclosure and demonstrated how to pick up a sloth if it is on the ground, how to pick up a porcupine etc.  It was great fun, and they were really very interested in our work!

We also received a call from the University Veterinary School of Heredia. They had a visiting vet from the states, Dr. Kay Backues, President American Association of Zoo Veterinarians who was visiting to give a course in Avian Medicine.  About 8 Costa Rican Vets and Dr. Kay came up to "practice" on our birds.  It was a great learning oportunity for me as well, and so incredible to see a true Avian specialist in action!

Necropsy Results on Sydney Sloth are in, she is the sloth that was found wrapped up in barbed wire, she died of a slow internal hemmorage.  It is always difficult when a rescue dies. We always ask our vet Janet to perform a necropsy so that we can learn and understand why they died.  In her case it is good to know and have an explanation.

Animal Updates Next!  New arrivals, difficult cases, and visitors: Jerry Jennings, toucan expert and Frank Todd, penguin expert! 

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!

Released Sloth Mic!

My friend Christian Robles Puchi who works for the Costa Rican equivalent of Fish and Wildlife, Sinac-Minaet, runs the office out of Area de Conservacion Tortuguero. He has rescued all kinds of animals and many of the ones here today are from his efforts. Most recently he was called out to rescue this sloth that had suffered burns and a terrible fall from electrical cables. He came in last week, and we immediately called Janet the vet to come and pick him up for the day so that she could check him out. The burns were bad, but he still was able to use his hands, but from the fall he was very stiff and refused to move his body for about 3 days. I kept up fluids and tried on many occasions to get him to eat, but he would only take small offerings.
Antibiotics for the burns and routine cleanings and his hands were improving, but not his appetite, so we all taked about the situation, and I decided to take him to our farm to release him yesterday...by then his hands were much better, and he was very active at night wanting out of the kennel. People frequently ask me, "how do you know when to release an animal?" and I say...the animal lets you know!
Two nights of constant movement trying to get outside is a sure indication!

So, off to the farm we drove, over the mountain down to the rainforest and we selected an area where there was a huge variety of trees, since Mic, as we named him, did not seem thrilled with the usual Almond leaves. We set up the kennel so that he could grab a hold of a large vine, and I could do a quick video of him...well, he literally shot out of the kennel, and ran up the tree...check out the video that I will be posting on youtube. (I don't know why I cannot put the link, so go to http://www.youtube.com/ and look up Slothmom videos and you should find it!)

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Here he is at the very top of the tree eating these beautiful green leaves...it re-enforced my decision to release him, he was very hungry and I was so happy to see him eating. He is the 5th sloth that we have released at the farm, all two toeds. We are very happy and proud of our joint efforts to return these animals back to their native habitats!



That went so fast I had some time to go look for other animals and do some birdwatching! Keel billed toucans, Chesnut mandibled toucans and some three toed sloths were all around! Plus this beautiful pair of Crested Caracaras!



Overall a great day!! We will be looking for him with each visit back to the farm.

Marley sloth Released!

Here is Marley sleeping in the huge Almond tree on our farm! Marley is the fourth Two Toed sloth that we have released! Many of you met Marley and were able to see him while he was here recuperating. He came from the Caribbean side of the country with severe wounds on his body, possible from a fight with another sloth, and injuries like if he had been hit by a car, or fallen a great distance. Initially refusing to use his arms and hand for several weeks. He also had severe infections in his feet possibly from barbed wire. He was here a little over a month and we cared for him around the clock. Being a wild sloth he did not take to the usual sloth fare around here of green beans and carrots, so every day we had to go find leaves for him to eat...up to 70 leaves a day!! We even had our B+B guests searching for the nice tender almond leaves that were his favorite.

We released Marley 3 weeks ago. He had a bit of trouble climbing the tree since it is so covered in vines, bromelieads, orchids, moss which is very usual in the rainforest. But he made it to the top and found a nice place to rest.

After he was settled, Jorge discovered that there was another sloth in the same tree! We were worried that another fight might happen...but a few days later the other sloth had moved on, and sloth fights are not common.

A week later Jorge found him in the same tree, but he had made it down the tree to pee and poo, so we were confidant that he was using his arms. Another week went by, and I found him still in the same tree.....and this week we was gone. I did not find him anywhere, so that is a good sign. He changed trees and has adapted to being wild again :)

On the other side of the river from Marley I found this very young sloth, probably recently left on her own by her mother. She was just hanging out and resting. Maybe someday they will hook up!! It's good to know that although they are mostly solitary he will have company if he chooses.

So, another successful release of an adult sloth, makes me feel good, proud of the work that we do here at The Toucan Rescue Ranch. We will be looking for Marley every time we visit the farm!

Toucan babies and Sloth emergency

We received an urgent phone call last friday, a week ago and it was someone from our local fish and wildlife department asking if we would be willing to help with toucan babies that were in a tree that someone cut down.

Apparently they did not realize there was not only one nest, but TWO.

Poor parents when they flew back to realize that their nest tree was on the ground...there were two nests, one of Keel billed toucans, and another of Collared Aracaris, each with three babies in the nests.

So, they picked them up and drove 3 hours to bring them to us, and we placed them in a brooder in my kitchen! They were very dehydrated and not doing that well, but in a few days they woke up and are now doing great. We have been on 2 hour feedings from 6am until 11pm, and daily weights, overall an extremely exhausting job, but as my

Mother says, "rewarding"...indeed!

It's been 10 days and as you can see, they are making great progress!! If you would like to see a video of them at feeding time check us out on Youtube at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VSGJUZWfb4

Update on Charly....took her first flight across the room and outside today!!! She was very excited, and is now starting to eat a bit on her own...still cannot use her feet very well, but really motivated!

We also received a phone call for a Sloth Emergency...this juvenile two toed sloth had been in a fight with another sloth, and possibly either fell from a great distance or was hit by a car...we don't really know, but he came in dehydrated and in pain. He refused to eat for four days, was in pain and refused to use his arms. He spent a day at the vets office, having x-rays, and good news nothing is broken. He finally started to eat and is more awake and energetic at night. He will use the one arm sometimes to hold food, but is not using is other arm. So, until he can use both arms again and climb successfully we cannot release him. The plan is to release him at our farm into the large Almond tree (his favorite leaf), but it might take awhile for him to heal. As you know, sloth's are sloooowwwww.

We named him Marley.

So if any of you have any brilliant fund raising ideas, please let me know!! As you can see, we are constantly expanding and will now need several new Toucan Flights!!

Thanks for your support!