If you know me personally, you know that I am a strong advocate for conservation, with an emphasis on sloth conservation.
Over the last few years, sloths have been becoming increasingly more popular. Unfortunately a lot of the popularity is coming from the cuteness factor of their slow moving nature, and fluffiness, mixed with their always happy demeanor. This type of thinking, along with the rise in social media and needing to post animal selfies, has led to a devastating fate for a lot of sloths.
In the future, I will create a blog post purely dedicated to conversation efforts and how we can each help, etc., but for now I would like to focus on specific sanctuaries.
Up until the early 90s, sloths were seen as useless creatures that weren't even worth bothering with (breaks my heart anyone would ever think that). Then, in 1997, the first sloth sanctuary: Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica was founded. With the first sloth: Buttercup (Rest In Hibiscus, you beautiful soul: 1991-2019). The founder of this sanctuary was Judy. Their story starts as such: Her neighbor saw a baby sloth, whose mom had been hit by a car, and passed away. They did not know what to do, but wanted to save the sloth, so Buttercup was brought to Judy. Judy contacted zoos and other wildlife centers, but no one knew how to care for a sloth. Therefore Judy and her husband took it upon themselves, through trial and error, to rehabilitate and raise Buttercup to live her best, most chill and carefree life. Thus, the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica was born.
The Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica is located on the Caribbean Coast side of Costa Rica. In the middle of the jungle. The main goal of this sanctuary is to take in, care for, and rehabilitate both orphaned and injured sloths. What a difference this sanctuary has made! In not only saving numerous baby and adult sloths, but also by educating the public as to why holding a sloth is detrimental to their health (it increases a sloth's blood pressure, which leads to premature death). According to the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica itself, their mission can be summed up as: "The Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica was officially authorized as a rescue center in 1997. The mission of the Sloth Sanctuary is the rescue, rehabilitation, research and, when possible, release of sloths and educating people about conserving the rainforest, the sloths’ natural habitat".
The sanctuary relies on tourism and donations to help raise money to take care of these sloths. Funds for caring for and rehabilitating the sloths that come to the sanctuary include medical expenses, food (goats milk, and the ever so tasty hibiscus flower), stuffies (baby sloths cling to their mom for the first 1-2 years of their life [depending on if the sloth is 2 or 3 fingered]. When sloths lose their mom, they get paired with a stuffed animal, in order to mimic the feeling of warmth and comfort that their mom would give them), as well as incubation chambers for the babies (the sanctuary has a baby sloth NICU). With 2020, well, being the year that it is, the sanctuary had to close its doors to outside visitors for a few months. This reduced the amount of funds they were able to obtain. While they held fundraisers, money coming in has slowed. Even though the world seems to have stopped, the amount of sloths needing rescue and care, has not. It is heartbreaking to see this sanctuary struggling for funds.
This section of my blog is created to raise awareness to the various sloth sanctuaries, maybe make you fall in love with some of their residents ;), as well as educate everyone on why sloths belong in the trees and the wild, and how (if you have the means and are interested, since I know times are hard for everyone right now, but even a $1 helps!) you can donate to help save the sloths!
Link to SS of CR social media site, where they post the cutest videos of their sloths, as well as any fundraising they have:
Link to SS of CR website. It is so fun to explore, and might spark a sense of adventure to plan a future trip down to stay at Buttercup Inn!
-Wish List for supplies needed to help care for the sloths
Quick note: My husband and I will be down, staying 4 days at Buttercup Inn in 2021. (This is the third attempt at rescheduling our honeymoon to Costa Rica; thank you stomach virus in December, then borders shutting down because of the Coronavirus ***insert disappointed eye rolling emoji here***). I will post another blog post after our trip, with all things near SS of CR to try, along with our itinerary, and of course cute pictures of sloths, but that is for a later time.
My husband and I love all the sloths, but we love love love a grumpy little sloth named Mateo and his stuffed giraffe: Mr. Moo! From re-planning our trip since December 2019, we have been in constant contact with someone from SS of CR. They know we are partial to Mateo and Moo, so they emailed us over a video and pictures of them, just so we know they are doing alright, and still awaiting our SLOW arrival (are we actually the sloths in this situation? I keep telling myself that we will eventually get to Costa Rica). If this doesn't show the kindness of this sanctuary, then I don't know what to tell you. This cause, as well as the sloths at this sanctuary, are so near and dear to my heart, and I will always support and advocate for them!
Note: All pictures are the content of Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica
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