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Published: March 10th 2012
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This is the last day of our vacation, and we are back in Costa Rica for the afternoon. We heard about a Toucan Rescue centre and decided to go and have a look.
This lady is originally from the US. She decided to go to Peru to study Scarlet Macaws, and after working there for a while, she was told that someone was needed in Costa Rica to help out injured and rescued birds. She packed up and moved to Costa Rica, bought some land, and took in a few birds that needed care. Things blossomed from there, and people brought her injured and rescued birds of all kinds. It seemed that nobody else wanted to take in toucans, so she took in some that had been rescued from a smuggling operation who were malnourished and had bad wing and tail trims which prevented them from flying and permanently injured them. From then on, she became the toucan mama. She is trying to breed toucans in captivity and release them into the wild, with some limited success.
People cut down trees and discover nests of baby birds
in the tree. People hit birds with their cars. Some “pet” birds are abused or neglected. Some are injured by dogs. All need help or they will die. Some can be rehabilitated and released – especially if they are found as adults. But some are injured so badly that they will never be able to survive on their own again. Two of her owls have only one wing because of such bad wing breaks that they had to be amputated. If animals or birds are found as babies, they imprint on her and will not survive on their own in the wild. So, she keeps them and cares for them.
This lady also took in a 2-toed sloth who had come down out of its tree for its weekly defecation and was attacked by a dog. The sloth was a mama with a little baby. Somebody brought it to her and she took it in. The mama didn’t survive, but the baby did. That was seven years ago, and the baby is now an adult sloth who sees her as its mama. She has another baby sloth she is raising too – so
cute! They need to be bottle fed for a year and are completely dependent on their mothers.
Her and her husband take care of a multitude of birds and animals now, and purchase over 100 pounds of fruit every week to feed the birds. They have toucans, macaws, parrots, parakeets, owls, pheasants, whistling ducks, and a bunch more that I can’t remember their names. They also have the sloths, a spider monkey that had been someone’s pet and had been neglected and was sick, a couple of porcupines, and a honey bear (nocturnal) who is also really cute. They give a few private tours, and also have built a couple of casitas to use as B&B houses to try to bring in some money to help with the cost of caring for all these animals and birds. They build larger enclosures as they get the money to do so. They are doing a great job but finances are tight. Check out their website below, and have a look at the pictures here.
http://www.toucanrescueranch.com/
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