Monday, April 4, 2011
Who'd a thunk it?
Monday, March 28, 2011
The birds are movin!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Remember that bird I let escape?
Just when you thought a story like that one couldn't get any better, it did. Things have been off to a decent start during my second round at ARCAS. It's been amazing seeing my friends that were here when I left, and a couple of return volunteers that are back have been tons of fun to hang out with, drink with, and enjoy general debauchery with as well. The downside so far has been a few animals have died. It always happens in waves, and a few monkeys died last week and it was pretty tough on everyone who had become quite attached to these animals even though they had been sick for a while. One spider monkey had a broken leg and she had to be isolated; alone she had become depressed and we had to groom her each day to cheer her up. She died of a respiratory infection. And we had received two howler monkeys confiscated from a circus, but after a couple days their injuries were just too series and they both passed away.
But onto happier times and hilarious stories: that pesky dove. Once again I had to feed it every day and had to make sure it didn't escape. I hated it more and more, especially when it was definitely trying to escape and I'd hit my head trying to rush in and out of its cage.
One day last week Alejandro, the director here at ARCAS, pulls me and another volunteer aside and says, "because you two know what's going on and understand what we do here, I'm going to tell you: those doves are never going to be released. They land on too many peoples' heads and are going to be killed, so we're just going to feed them to the margays."
Margays are like small jaguar/cheetahs. Smaller cats, but they hunt for their food. So after all the crazy adventures of capturing the bird, putting up with it in the cages, and all that jazz, we fed it to another animal we have here at ARCAS. My favorite part has to be the food board, pictured here. The doves are crossed out, and below you can read the reason why. RIP, inside the belly of a margay.
Monday, February 28, 2011
One last sloth story
A week or so ago after we had finished feeding all the sloths for the afternoon, one of the new volunteers came running over to a group of us and the volunteer coordinator saying one of the sloths was choking on something. We rushed over and Claire, the volunteer coordinator, frantically opened the cage door and tried to get the choking sloth out of the back of its enclosure. I had to basically shove the other sloth in the cage out of the way to help out. Oh well.
Once Clair had picked up the sloth and was holding it we could see that it was choking on what seemed to be a little piece of string. They all have towels in their cages that they enjoy pulling over themselves to create a cover and shading from the light. So as Claire held the sloth I took the little bit of string on the sloth´s nose and began pulling. I eventually pulled out a piece of string almost a foot and a half long that for some reason it had been trying to swallow.
After I wasn´t sure who was more relieved, the sloth or Claire. She looked like she was about to have a heart attack. I guess the sloth was about to have a similar experience, but of course it did was all sloths do and went back to it´s platform, curled up in the corner, and went to sleep.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Change of plans
The time I named a sloth
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Sloth Fun Facts
The biggest problem with sloth stereotypes is both species of sloths are called by the same name; however, as I mentioned in my previous post, they are as closely related to each other as they are to ant eaters. Think of them as any other type of animal such as birds, dogs, or cats: they may look similar but they are actually different species.
The pictures of the gray sloth you see is Jojo. He is a three-toed sloth. They are the much slower of the two and do act very sloth-like. Their fur is much tougher and they develop a patch on their backs (why we don't know, but it's possibly there for identification or mating purposes). The three-toeds only each cecropia leaves here at the sanctuary, but can also eat certain flowers; they have a very basic diet.
Two-toeds, despite having the same common ancestor (which was twice as big as an elephant 80 million years ago), have a more varied diet in the wild but each mostly leaves and veggies here. Each day they receive carrots and potatoes, unripe mango (they hate when it's ripe), and water apple (imagine a red pear). And while these guys are called sloths, they can get from one side of their cages to another in just a couple of seconds. I'll go to place their food on their platforms and when I think they're still on the floor I'll turn around and a sloth will be right in my face.
Oddly enough they do not like each other at all. When we take out the babies to give them some space to roam around we are told to strictly keep them apart. Otherwise they fight and bite. They also have different facial structure. It's hard to describe, so just take a look for yourself. But three-toeds seem unreal almost, like they're mini robots trying to move around. I'll try and take some video for everyone to see.
So there you have it! And since there is very little research out there about these things, you can basically consider yourself an expert.