April 2025 | Tales From The jungle
It’s hard to believe we’re already heading into the fifth month of the year—while sloths may be slow, time certainly isn’t! April brought plenty of rain (as usual), but that didn’t stop us. What paused some of our work for a few days was Semana Santa (Easter Week)—one of the busiest holidays in Costa Rica.
Our town is connected by a single main road stretching 20 kilometers through the South Caribbean. Along this road, you’ll find our homes, our headquarters, and during Semana Santa, a sea of cars. The traffic is so intense that locals stock up on groceries in advance and hunker down at home to avoid the gridlock. With crowds, heat, and bumper-to-bumper chaos, getting to the field is virtually impossible… even if we tried!
But despite a few unexpected pauses, April still brought us some exciting progress and special moments worth sharing.
Strengthening Research in the Caribbean
This month, our researcher José Guzmán García participated in a workshop led by SINAC (Costa Rica’s National System of Conservation Areas). The event brought together environmental authorities and scientists from across the Caribbean region to create new, unified research protocols.
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The goal? Faster permits, better communication, a shared research database, and increased transparency for scientific studies. For us, an organization that spends a lot of time navigating research permits and reporting requirements, this is fantastic news. It’s a hopeful step toward more efficient, collaborative conservation in our region.
Connecting with Kábata Könana
Our Connected Gardens team also visited Kábata Könana, an inspiring women-led Indigenous association from the Cabécar territories. Located just a short drive from our home base, this community invited us to help coordinate the planting of over 1,400 trees across their land.
Kábata Könana is dedicated to protecting natural resources, preserving ancestral knowledge, promoting Indigenous leadership, and strengthening the local economy through projects that are rooted in cultural identity and respect for the environment. We’re honoured to support their vision and look forward to planting seeds, both literal and collaborative, together.
The Wedding Crashers
And here’s a wildlife highlight we didn’t see coming! A family of howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) was spotted crossing the Sloth Crossing canopy bridge SC-331 at a location that was, on that very same day, serving as a wedding venue! That’s a wedding blessing!
View the Sloth Crossings Map
April’s Blogs: In Case You Missed It
April was packed with exciting stories from the jungle (and even beyond!). This month, we shared the rare record of a leucistic baby sloth, took a hypothetical sloth trip to space to celebrate the International Day of Human Space Flight, and filled ourselves with hope for the future in a special blog for Earth Day.
We also recommended some of our favorite books in honor of International Book Day, and were proud to make an appearance in the PBS series In Her Nature!
As always, none of this work would be possible without your support. Whether you donate, share our mission, or simply tell someone why sloths matter, you are part of this movement.
As conservation efforts around the world face increasing financial challenges, your support now is more important than ever. If you can, please consider making a gift to help us continue protecting sloths, restoring forests, and building a future where wildlife and people thrive together.
Dr. Rebecca Cliffe
Founder and Executive Director
