Travel, Nature & Us

During our time at The Rescue Center, we focused mostly on working with the Sloths. As we mentioned in the previous Sloth posts, this work also included Slothsitting – and this was the most rewarding, entertaining and certainly our favourite part of the whole Costa Rica trip.

The baby sloths (living in their small enclosures above the vet hospital) would first need to be extracted and placed in a large storage box/tub to transport them. Some would be ready and keen to go, but some (most) would just hunker down, pull their little blanket over their head and prefer to snooze; either way, they needed to get out and exercise their climbing muscles.

This is where the small cushion or soft toy comes in. They each have one (donated to the rescue centre), and they associate them as their mother. When you move them or start to take them away, the sloth will (usually) instinctively grab hold and climb on top, gripping with all 4 legs. Then you simply lift the cushion up with one hand underneath and steady sloth’s back end with the other hand. This way there’s less risk of being accidentally pinched or bitten (if they’re really not in the mood for this right now).

After lowering them into the tub, we’d carry them either to the “training trees”, or (later in our visit) to the sloth play park. The trees are closer to the vet hospital but are small so that the sloth cannot escape and can be extracted if they choose to stay too long. Each sloth had a certain amount of time (set by the vet team) that they should be out. The bigger ones approx 30 mins, the smaller ones 20 mins for each shift (twice a day).

We found that the sloths preferred the play park. It was further to walk (be carried) but it was much more interesting for them to pick different routes and explore the 3 different climbing frames (made from natural materials).

During Slothsitting we needed to put the sloth onto a tree or climbing frame (only 1 sloth at a time), then observe their behaviour over their allotted time, and record it in a book in the vet hospital when returning. This included how many times they came down to the ground and needed to be picked up and put back, and if they went to the toilet, or just found a nice spot for a snooze. If they came down to the ground 3 times (other than to go to the toilet) and needed to be picked up and placed back in the tree/frame, then they obviously weren’t happy and would be taken back to their enclosure regardless of the time.

When they did come down, we had to pick/scoop them up quickly and safely by not using the cushion/soft toy (because it’s tricky getting them off those…), but with a certain technique. The baby sloths tended to crawl across the ground towards the human looking after them -not ideal in the long term but a convenient necessity at this point. You would place yourself behind the sloth and with each hand simultaneously fold their rear claws in, hold them there with the palms of your hands, and with each forefinger and thumb wrap around the front arms close to the elbow joint and lift up in a scooping motion. There you have it, if done correctly (and quickly) you would have all 4 legs and claws safe from clamping/pinching onto you, and you hands far enough away from any possible biting. If not done right the sloth will either have clamped itself to your ankle, or, spun round and clamped itself to your arm – the power of even a baby sloths grip could cause significant (inadvertent) injury, and you would likely need help from someone else to “de-sloth”.

After scooping them up you would hold them upside down below a branch or beam of the climbing frame, and the sloth would grab hold as you simultaneously let go and you can watch them go. What surprised us most was just how fast they can be when they really want to be…..I mean really fast!

Over time we learnt more about their individual personalities and moods, and we tried hard not to have any favourites, but of course this was difficult. It was funny that everyone working on the sloth team would have a different favourite; maybe because we would find certain sloths particularly cute or maybe because the sloths personality would reflect our own. Our time with the baby sloths was the highlight of our trip to Costa Rica and we have experiences and memories that we will keep forever. Elizabeth will miss Merry after bonding so quickly during their first few babysitting sessions, and Warwick will forever feel a little guilty for bashing Chronos’ nose on the tree branch when rushing to put him back up.

P.S. A shout-out to the incredible sights and sounds performed by the Leaf Cutter ants. These armies were out in force each night near the sloths enclosures (taking the leaves), and were also very impressive to witness, even if they did make the night shift really difficult…