Sanctuary helps Suriname's sloths back to jungle

Construction and Moving

The sloths definitely feel that something is in the air (follow The Move). After we heard in the first week of the year that the landlord wanted to have his house back, and now suddenly had a fixed deadline, we started planning. And thus the sloths must notice that something is strange, since their usual environment is changing slowly as we have started packing things in boxes. Construction is no longer moving forward at a sloth’s pace. Rapidly containers are being finished, put in place, beams are erected and floors laid. Every time we turn up at Misgunst to release sloths, we see a completely changed Sloth Wellness Center, we see our dreams materializing. And we hope the surrounding lush green trees and this center will also fulfill the dreams of the sloths. However, we still have not achieved our funding goal, despite a generous donation by Dutch Postcodeloterij. 

Rescues and Releases

As always we have had many rescues and releases since our last report to you. Volunteer Wynne who has been one of the forces behind the realization of the Sloth Wellness Center had hardly arrived back from abroad when a rescue call came. So we jumped into the sloth rescue van to find a sloth clinging onto the back of a cabin of a pick-up truck. The animal was healthy and we took him with us, after I explained, using the rescue van image, the work we are doing to the son of the person who had reported the animal. Although not all of our rescues ended in successful releases we feel reasonably satisfied with what we achieved over the past months. It is hard to recognize that we cannot save all of them, because we are not always receiving animals in perfect health due to acts by humans or their dogs. But our desire to really save animals is so strong that despite the setbacks of loosing some of our rescue animals as they pass on, we remain resolved to continue to do the best we can. The first rescued sloth of 2017, succumbed to his internal lesions caused by a dog attack. We all felt very sad around this episode and such a start of our new year. But more recently things have been going much better.

Malunde

One thing that really made my day was my encounter with Malunde, a six-year old boy from Sweden, who really knows how to draw. On a holiday from Sweden, he came with his mother and sister on a release, and within 5 minutes after witnessing the release he finished a drawing of what he had seen. Malunde will not ever need a camera. His mother recently wrote to me: “Such a fantastic experience! Malunde says that he one day wants to be like you, and help animals in need.” I am sure that with a talent like he has, he will succeed in that.

Johannes

A new phase in care was achieved recently when we received our new incubators that we received from our partner Welttierschutzgesellschaft so we could provide better care to infants. And the universe had the arrival of the incubators coincide with the arrival of Johannes an infant anteater. Johannes’ mother had been shot by hunters and the most essential thing he needed was TLC from us, and a stable warm environment. He had an abscess and with the help from anteater expert Roberto and our own vet Audrey, he received treatment and has been stable ever since. Please follow our facebook page or instagram for updates on how Johannes is doing.

With our first report in 2017 to you, we want to thank you for all your support throughout 2016 and cannot wait to welcome you in our Sloth Wellness Center soon.

Links:

• Photo report of the construction
• Johannes in his nice and warm incubator

Overcoming difficulties

We have been experiencing some difficult times at the temporary shelter. After our little friend Glenn passed away, we unfortunately lost more of our young animals. Chill, a young female who had become sick when she had been rescued, also died. She had been diagnosed after she arrived at our place a year ago with a coccidiosis infection, that we managed to overcome. She was slowly recovering, and we thought that this problem had been solved. However, she died after the infection came back. Then Moppie, one of our two-fingered sloths became ill, and we started doing systematic fecal analysis of all animals. With the exception of three animals, they all were infected with this parasitic disease of the intestinal tract. Our first thought was that they had been infecting each other, and how this happened was not completely clear, but it would mean we had to start disinfecting the soil, and keep food trays and animals more separated. We started a complete overhaul of the food preparation location, we introduced patient diagnostic cards for all animals, instead of only for the animals that were receiving special care. Medicines arrived from abroad, and the treatment of the animals was started. And then Naomi arrived. According to the person who reported her, she had crawled out of the forest, and he put her back, and then she came back out again. So he decided to take her home. She did not want to eat, and after a few days he called us and she was brought in by our staff. Naomi was kept separated from the other animals. When she went to the toilet for the very first time after she arrived, we found she had diarrhea and we immediately did a collection and brought it for analysis to the veterinary lab. She had a bad coccidiosis infection! Not from our other animals, because there had not been any contact! But maybe it was something that made them ill if they became stressed. Some of our residents are definitely stressed, Elly, Bas and Stoney had their claws hacked off by some horrible people, so that caused them definitely stress, and then they had to suffer the close presence of us humans. It was in all, not the normal high in the canopy relaxed type of life they were used to. For the moment it appears that we have everything under control, the next fecal examinations will show how the animals are doing.

Rescues and Releases

As usual also in the period since our last report to you we had many animals that came and went. We also had a porcupine, which next to sloths and anteaters, are definitely among my favorite animals, even though they have a very pungent smell. But the definite highlight of our rescues and releases was the mommy and baby sloth that decided to visit some humans (you can read more here). And on the Independence Day of Suriname, we were able to release them back into the wild. 

Elly

Elly is a young female sloth who arrived sadly with her nails clipped. She was found crossing a road in a urban neighborhood, and Ellery who called me, had hoped that she could be released into the wild. When he gave her to me, I immediately understood that it was not going to be possible, because her nails were too short. She is now together with Bas and Stoney staying while her nails slowly grow back (it takes around 2 years to grow back her nails.

Exciting news : construction has really started

This week we are really starting to work on the construction. The first shipping container to be prepared by the welding crew is the intensive care unit. After that they start working on the ground floor and upper floor, shaping these shipping containers in offices, a treatment room, storage room, and a place for volunteers, the manager and researchers to stay. We are designing a limited mobility tree island where animals can stay that need to be still around for treatment, but where they can be in a natural environment. If you want to know more about this part of the project, please visit our other project page here.

As you can see we still need financial support to make this a completely slothified project!

With this last report of this year, we wish to thank you for your support! It is much appreciated. And we wish you a slothified holiday season!

Links:

• International Sloth Day and 3rd International Sloth Meeting