May 2024 | Tales From The Jungle
A Unique Place in the World: Tortuguero
Tortuguero is a small village with no streets or cars, nestled between the ocean and a river. It’s known for its sea turtle nesting season, as well as its mangroves, rivers, and canals. Some people call this area the “Little Amazon” of Costa Rica. To get there, one must drive 1.5 hours to Moin Port and then take a 3-hour boat ride (as there are no roads) through a river with caimans, crocodiles, and other wildlife. This area is also known for the presence of jaguars!
The first time we went to Tortuguero was back in 2021. Along with different local organizations, we organized a dog castration clinic, not only to prevent attacks on sloths but also on sea turtles and their nests. We also helped with beach clean-ups, delivered our educational booklets to local families, and installed six Sloth Crossing canopy bridges and camera traps. It was on one of these bridges that we captured Spider Monkeys using them for the first time! You can read more about that trip in the chronicles we wrote in the link below.
Team Sloth Goes Back to Tortuguero
This time, Diego and Dayber from the Connected Gardens/Sloth Crossing team, and José and Jack from the Urban Sloth Project visit to Tortuguero to keep expanding the project.
Despite some setbacks due to the weather, our team managed to install four bridges, set up two camera traps, and collect data about the trees, including diameter, height, species, GPS points, and other relevant information for a study we’re conducting on the usage of our canopy bridges. Read the details of our second trip in the blog below!
New HQ and SloCo Lab
This month, we moved to a new, upgraded HQ, closer to town. Now we have expanded office space, climate-controlled storage for equipment and electronics, a garden with our forest nursery, and even a dedicated room for SloCo Labs. Little by little, we have started to equip our own laboratory. Besides all our tracking equipment, we now have a centrifuge, an oven, and a deep freezer full of sloth hair and fecal samples.
Sloth Bracelets for Sloth HQ
We’re thrilled to announce that our collaboration with Fahlo and their sloth tracking bracelets has been a total success! In just a couple of months, the bracelets became so popular that Fahlo was able to make a very important donation to us!
Their first donation will allow us to start one of our biggest dreams: the construction of our own dream HQ. This will enable us to stop paying rent and allow us to settle and plan long-term strategies from a permanent base. We want to thank Fahlo for collaborating with us and for allowing us to take the first step into this important moment! This will be one of our biggest milestones as an organization, and we’ll keep you updated! Right now, we’ve just started the search for an architect.
And of course, we want to thank everyone who’s been supporting us since day one. It’s been amazing to have you along the way as we make advancements and achieve our goals. We can’t wait to share the progress of this new stage with you. I wish you a wonderful weekend and a great start to June. See you next month!
Dr. Rebecca Cliffe
Founder and Executive Director
