ConservationSloth Diaries
Hello, I’d like to introduce myself! My name is Hannah, and I’m the newest member of The Sloth Institute research team! I’m here to make sure that Kermie and Ellen, two two-toed hand-raised orphaned sloths, have a successful release, which *fingers crossed* will be happening in about a month. Before that happens, we want to get to know the area a little bit more.
The area that Kermie and Ellen are lucky enough to call their new home is Tulemar, which is a beautiful resort near Manuel Antonio, a well-known national park in Costa Rica. I’ve been here in Tulemar for little over a week, and I am so excited for Kermie and Ellen to arrive! While staying at a resort sounds a bit luxurious (and trust me, some of it is! Our room is so nice!) it isn’t without a large dose of hard work. Part of my research is making sure that Tulemar is ready for the sloth release, which means finding out who Kermie and Ellen will be sharing their home with. And let me say that they have quite a few neighbors!
So far I’ve seen troops of white faced capuchin monkeys, squirrel monkeys, and howler monkeys (and I’ve had fun howling back at them), tons of hermit crabs scattering the beach (every step you take sends hermit crabs tumbling as they pull back inside their shell), lots of beautiful birds, a few intimidatingly large iguanas, and of course, sloths galore! Every day I walk through all of Tulemar, and there is a LOT of Tulemar to explore! Thirty three acres filled with beautiful bungalows, trails through maritime nature preserves, and an unfortunate abundance of steep hills. But apparently sloths love these thirty three acres-in one day, Tom and I found 14 sloths! And I’ve even seen a few mom-and baby couples! (While all those babies are adorable, they’ve got nothing on Monster and Chuck.)
When I’m not trekking the hills of Tulemar,
I’m helping guests find sloths, telling anyone who will listen how awesome sloths are, and watching sloth behavior to learn about how sloths behave in the wild. When it’s pouring rain (which happens quite often here in Costa Rica) you can find me at the computer working on cool gadgets for The Sloth Institute.
One of my most recent projects is an app that will not only connect people better to the work of The Sloth Institute, it will also help launch a very new exciting program we have been working on (more on this coming soon!) that will contribute to the education and conservation of the sloth population.
So with all of these projects to keep me busy, it might seem that I don’t have much time to enjoy the luxury of Tulemar, but believe me when I say that being able to see all these animals here makes up for it. Tulemar is a living example of how businesses can thrive will still allowing natural ecosystems to survive, and gives me hope as a conservationist that more businesses will see how successful this example is. I better stop before I begin a tangent about conservation, but I would like to end on a final note: I am very happy to join this team and can’t wait to see how our sloth release goes!
