Rescue Centers!

We sure have seen a lot of sloths this last week.  We went to the Sloth Sanctuary in Cahuita.  We also ventured to the Jaguar Rescue Center in Puerto Viejo.

The Sloth Sanctuary has had a television show on Animal Planet.  I have not seen it yet.
You can check it out here.......
It was a long tour.  We saw and learned about adult, tiny baby and older baby sloths.  The tour included a canoe ride where we spotted howler monkeys, more sloths and learned how banana trees grow and produce fruit.

A flowering banana tree - the yellow part of the flower is going to become the fruit.

The two types of sloths they have are two toed and three toed but we discovered they both have three toes!  People who know a lot about sloths call them two fingered or three fingered.  The two fingered is nocturnal and looks completely different from the three fingered.  It has blondish fur, four sharp canine teeth used to eat unripe mangos, is bigger and cannot swim.

Cute baby Spirit

The three fingered has the Pur A Vida smile, has course grey colored fur, only eats leaves, has no canine teeth, can swim, and is diurnal.
Stevie was my favorite two toed sloth.  Spirit was my favorite three toed.  Spirit was less than a month old.  All the babies they have are orphans.

The Jaguar Rescue Center was amazing!  They try hard to reintroduce their animals back into the wild.  They have been successful at reintroducing baby sloths.  Sadly, the Sloth Sanctuary has not and they have so many babies there.
Along the tour we saw a baby keel billed toucan that was so cute!  He was there because his wings had been clipped and another animal got him.  They have been working with him a lot and he is getting much better.  It will take two years for his feathers to grow back.

They also had a very tame deer as well as two pelicans that roamed around the gardens where we were.  Pistachio was the nice pelican.  He has a wing with severe ligament damage and won't be able to fly again.  The other pelican was mean.  We had to be careful and give him a lot of space, which was tricky because he would get in our way!  He will be leaving the center soon because his wing is getting better and he is starting to fly.  They said when he is ready he will just fly away.

We got to see the famous Costa Rican tree frog.  It was sleeping because they are nocturnal but we could still see some of its colors.  A tamarind anteater, baby howler monkeys, owls, raptors, big cats and a crocodile were all there too.  I loved the Jaguar Rescue Center and want to volunteer there one day!