Sloth Sanctuary Suriname sequel: the whole story!

Over the past twenty years, we have had many exceptional, sad, remarkable, and sometimes strange rescues. As if organizing a three-day mini-conference around our 20th anniversary was not enough pressure, the uptick in rescues around our anniversary felt like an extra adrenaline rush. The presence of an out-of-country film crew, in my opinion, was the reason for this. Among our volunteers, we have special lingo to describe people who attract sloths. We call such persons sloth magnets. And people who really want to see a sloth, and no sloth to be seen around?? We call those persons sloth coolers. For me, it was the producer who was the sloth magnet. I had just been introduced, and five minutes after they left my office for their hotel, I received the first rescue call. This was 7 days before our anniversary. From that moment on, we received a call every day. Unfortunately, not all had a happy ending. But the one rescue I want to tell you about is Houdini's. The first time we were called about this animal, it was hanging on the gate of a school on the night of the 2^nd of October. When we arrived, the animal had disappeared into a tree in the yard of the school. It was pitch dark and we could not see anything. So we left and did not hear back from the school about this animal as expected the next day.

Then, on the 22^nd of October, we received a call from a school reporting that a sloth was hiding under the roof. As we were in the midst of our anniversary conference, two colleagues left with the cameraman. The producer was already on her way to the airport. With a lot of effort, they crawled under the roof, lured the animal out of its hiding place, and onto a bench. The animal was then brought to the office for an overnight stay with another animal that had been brought in the night before. The next day, when the colleagues went to the office to transfer the animals to our rescue center in Saramacca for release, only one sloth was found. The big bench was found broken on the floor, and the animal was nowhere to be seen. But we had suspicions it might be in the mango tree behind our office.

Then, on the 3^rd of November, when the cameraman was on his way to fly home, I received some pictures from our office neighbor. He had been talking to someone at his gate when he saw an animal looking at him from our fence. He managed to put it in a crate, and when my colleague and I arrived at the office, we put a zip tie on the door. Tied the crate to the burglar bars and thus ensured that this sloth was finally going to the forest to be released. When we told the cameraman the sloth had been found, he texted back: "Surely, you have to name that one Houdini!" Which we of course did.

We want you to know that we are thankful for your support, as expressed in the document attached to this post. For 20 years, our work has been made possible by people like you, who continue to fund our rescue efforts so we can save sloths from unfortunate situations.

• Thank you for supporting our work! (PDF)
  

In recent months, two rescue calls drove home the danger wild animals face in our city. We’ve often warned about pet-related risks—our beloved dogs and cats can harm sloths, anteaters, armadillos, and porcupines. But this time, the threat came from something else entirely.

I received from the local beer brewery a call that a baby porcupine was walking on their fence. When I arrived, it was no baby—just a rare hairy porcupine, inching across coils of razor wire. Porcupines are not very fast, so as soon as the ladder arrived, I tried to get the animal in a net, but as you can imagine, my net got caught in the razor blades, and I could not easily maneuver. Porcupines have very soft hands, that they use to hold their food and to walk over the branches in the trees. My second attempt, while balancing on a ladder, and with my animal gloves on, was to lift the animal up from the fence and out of the razor wire coils. However, the animal was clutching onto the razor wire, and of course I could not pull it without risking severe cut wounds to the animal. Two staff members came to help me, and together we managed to remove the animal from the razor wire fence. Our vet treated some of the cut wounds, but as the animal was apparently not eating after two nights, we had to decide that since its wounds were not bleeding or infected, it was better to let it go and find healing leaves and nutrition all by itself in our forest.

The second rescue call was from a lady who loves animals and regularly picks them up from the road when they are crossing, after which she calls us. This time it was an animal, according to her account a baby anteater, that had fought with their dog. When we arrived, we found the animal covered in a blanket. To me, it was not a good sign that the animal had been lying there, covered in a blanket, without trying to escape. The animal was very weak and we easily managed to transfer it to one of our animal carriers. We contacted the vet and we were told we could bring the animal for a health check. As she was being inspected, we realized that she probably had already been weakened by previous cut wounds. And she walked, weakened as she was, past the dog, who then attacked her. Her older cut wounds were from what we could see, most likely sustained during an encounter with razor wire. It was a deep wound in her front paw, and fortunately not through the tendon, so she could still use her powerful claws. However, the biggest claw from her other paw was gone. And for us it is a mystery, did she get stuck somewhere and lost her claw, or was this also caused by the razor wire. We had to stitch the wound, and she is currently recovering from her ordeal at our rehabilitation center. Hopefully July, as we called her, will be strong again soon so we can let her roam the forest again, far from the dangers of the city.

This was the second time, that in such a short time, I came in contact with razor wire this year. Previously, I had rescued animals that were sitting in razor wire, or near it. And it is not easy to remove the animals from those locations. I understand we want to feel safe in our homes and businesses, but razor wire is a danger to our wild animals. Maybe we can work in our societies to make our homes and businesses safe, without it posing such a severe threat to wild animals.

Thank you for believing in what we do. Let’s protect our wildlife—without the razor wire. Together, we can give these animals more than a second chance; we can give them safety, healing, and the freedom to roam. Together, we can carry on our vital work of rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing sloths and anteaters. Share this story. Donate. Speak up. Let’s make urban wildlife safety a shared commitment.