Sloth Sanctuary Suriname sequel: the whole story!

In our last report we mentioned that we are making the finishing touches to our facility. And this is indeed truly happening as you can see from the pictures in our 5^thSloth Wellness Picture Report. The animal kitchen is funded by Welttierschutzgesellschaft with whom we signed a second partnership agreement that next to animal welfare will also focus on more information and awareness-raising, a training in the medicine of sloths, a sloth action plan, as well as a wildlife welfare workshop. So, that means it is going to be a busy year for us next to our rescues and releases. The intensive care unit and the animal treatment room were also completed as shown in above report with the financial support of Kosmos Energy and you, our GlobalGiving donors. Outstanding on the intensive care unit is the air-conditioning to ensure that the temperature inside this unit remains stable. The human kitchen was fully funded by our GlobalGiving donors. We sometimes do tend to forget that the humans providing care for our animals need to be taken care of as well.

We are now working on finishing the educational part of our center. The graphics and lay-outs are being prepared. Our star volunteer Wynne prepared everything in word and idea, now it’s the job of the graphic designer to bring it to life. Kosmos Energy provided funding for the educational part of our center and this will be brought into place in the coming month. We are now searching for a part-time educator who will receive visitors who have made an appointment. It is sometimes hard to explain to our visitors that we do not keep animals in cages and that there is no guarantee that if they visit they will see something. Ana and 19November remain around the center and show themselves erratically, and the same is true of Beertje. Although he does seem to enjoy getting his apples, pumpkin and rice from time to time.

Our three juveniles are not on show, so we do not allow visitors to come in that part of the center where they are. However, especially Jinkoe is now showing some independence and can regularly be seen in the trees next to the center. Ostrich is not as adventurous yet, although she is a month older. When I say she, I have to confess that as long as she is not one year old, we do not know for sure if Ostrich is a female. The same is true for Jinkoe. Avi is growing well, that is our two-fingered sloth baby who we allow to venture out of the incubator in the evening. Often that leads to trips into the jungle gym where the animal suddenly tends to feel insecure and it then starts screaming for its mother. When the red teddybear is held in front of Avi, she climbs so fast onto it, that you would not believe it is really a slo(w)th.

Our next big project is setting up a good storage facility, where we can keep our kennels, stocks and other utensils that cannot be stored in the main building. We hope this can be done with some financial aid from our donors in the coming months. As always, we thank you for your generous support for our sloth rescue center.