Animal

Meet the people who rehabilitate injured sloths at a rescue ranch in Costa Rica


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Hoffman’s two-toed sloths reside in the forests of Central and South America, where they live slow-paced lives.

Unfortunately, due to their incredible cuteness and docile nature, many people steal them from their homes to sell them off at pets, which can have dire consequences for the animals.

They don’t adapt well to human life – many are treated badly and abandoned – as well as attacked by dogs, hit by cars or electrocuted by power lines.

The Toucan Rescue Ranch ner San Isidro in Costa Rica is dedicated to rehabilitating sloths – so far, they have released more than 100 sloths back into the wild since 2007 (both two- and three-fingered ones), but it’s no easy feat, as some are badly injured and require a lot of care.

In the video, Leslie Howle, co-founder of the ranch, can be heard describing the lengthy process of rehabilitating a female sloth that had been brutalised by someone who wanted her as a pet.

‘To get her as a pet, people pulled down hard on her hind legs to separate her from her mother, and they broke all her hip muscles, to get her down so she could become someone’s pet,’ said Leslie.

‘And so she suffered a lot of pain and also couldn’t move. We had to give her a high dose of anti-inflammatories and vitamins to regenerate the muscles, and we also gave her physical therapy like massages, and we would take her out to the grass to walk every day until she made her recovery.

‘It was a process of six or eight months, but it worked, and now she’s recovered.’

Several sloths tragically died when fed cow’s milk, but the rescue ranch has now changed to goat’s milk, which goes down a treat (Picture: AP)
Human contact is kept to a minimum, so the sloths don’t get attached (Picture: AP)

Ana María Villada Rosales is the resident veterinarian at the rescue ranch.

She helps teach baby sloths the skills they need to survive in the wild, such as climbing down from the trees to poo on the ground – which is where sloths defecate in the wild.

This is useful for moths, who lay eggs in the dung, which produces an algae that is thought to be nutritious for sloths and also helps them camouflage themselves.

‘In the case of babies, the moment we receive them we do a medical exam,’ Ana María can be heard saying in the video.

‘Once this test is done, we examine them because they usually come from free life or they are orphans so they bring some diseases.

‘Then they are de-wormed, they are rehabilitated until they are in better health, and then they are placed in a group with other juveniles so that they become familiar with those who are going to be released and so that they are not alone because at this age they are usually always with their mother.

‘In this way, being with another sloth, they do not have this anxiety or stress caused by loneliness. Part of rehabilitation work with the babies is to teach them to defecate on the floor every day, and that’s what is happening back here.’

The sloths are taught how to behave in the wild so they can eventually be released in the jungle (Picture: AP)
A little hug session between two rescue sloths (Picture: AP)

The sloths are well-taken-care-of; they’re given plenty of snacks and opportunities to snooze (one of their favourite pastimes) – but before the ranch was set up, there was little to no information on how best to rehabilitate the animals.

For instance, several sloths tragically died because they were fed cow’s milk, a discovery which led the volunteers to swap out this liquid for goat’s milk – which is safe and goes down a treat.

This sloth sanctuary has been created to benefit the sloths, which means human contact is kept to a minimum, in order for them to avoid attachment and to teach the sloths how to survive on their own.

The animals are also encouraged to climb trees, feed on leaves and find good napping spots.

More often than not, the animals rescued by the Toucan Ranch have suffered at the hands of humans.

Daniel Quintanilla Mendoza, the environmental education coordinator at the ranch, said: ‘Many of the cases we receive are the fault of human beings.

‘It’s clear that natural selection influences many factors and it’s also true that humans shouldn’t interfere or not so much, but from my point of view, if we are the ones that are affecting these species, then it’s our duty to play a part, rescue them and help them as much as possible.

‘For example, animals that get hit by vehicles, or that get electrocuted – in those situations, what’s happened is down to us, it is our fault, and at that time we must intervene.

‘As human beings we cannot leave an animal who has been electrocuted, in these circumstances just because of natural selection.

‘Obviously there could be other cases, we would have to look into them, but the three (main) reasons why we get them here, the majority are cases where humans have had something to do with it, and in these cases we have to act.’

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