Tales from Our Volunteers | Tracking Diaries #14

“July was my first serious month of volunteering, as I was still learning in June. I enjoyed feeling more confident in my sloth-tracking abilities and becoming more familiar with the area.

This was also the first month I did home ranges, I found them more challenging, but I enjoyed seeing the deep jungle and getting stuck in it! Overall, I’ve enjoyed July with SloCo and am even more excited for August!”

-Archie

“This month of volunteering has been busy and full on; we have been doing a lot of home ranges which have been long hours. We have also been tracking Croissant, who is still with her baby, which is magic to see! “

-Florence

“July has given us quite tumultuous weather. The rainy season has truly kicked in here in Puerto Viejo. The team has been busy with both tracking and home ranging.

Home ranging with the current weather has brought on many difficulties, including becoming waist-deep in mud and water! Nevertheless, we have achieved a great deal with the home range of sloths, and our quadrants are being completed timely and with enthusiasm from the entire team.

Tracking has continued and our sloths have stayed near to their preferred trees. Our only outlier is, once again, Freckles. She is headed north on Cocles Beach; she continues to journey a kilometer or two north and south, unusual in our studies observations.”

“We said goodbye to two volunteers in the past couple of weeks, Chaia and Manon. We wish them well with their studies and endeavors.

In other news, we had a very unsuccessful sloth collaring! Jose and I located a sloth low enough to join the study. A two-fingered female, but once Dr. Cliffe arrived, the sloth, unfortunately, was a step ahead of us. It became increasingly aggressive and gave our sloth teddy bear Jim quite a tough time! On top of that, the anesthetic needle completely fell off, a stroke of bad luck and a reminder we are humans who can make mistakes, especially when working with wild animals!

To finish our month, we have had even more extreme weather. I had a tree fall on the neighboring homes, causing great damage and a nearly 24-hour power outage! Many cars and power lines were destroyed. These are the woes and pros of beautiful Costa Rica!”

-Ashka