“Patience is a virtue” — that is the tired mantra I keep repeating to myself as I observe Hanna and Ellie, two adult two-fingered sloths soft released just three short weeks ago. Unlike a hard release, where an animal is placed in their natural habitat and left to find shelter and food for themselves, a soft release entails months, sometimes years of preparing the animal for life in the wild. Over the past few months, Hanna and Ellie have been learning how to survive in the “real world” in a pre-release enclosure at the SST Sarapiqui release site. This, the final stage of their long rehabilitation journey, is called Sloth University. Their enclosure is supplied daily with leaves we have observed wild sloths eat, has live trees to climb on, a partial roof to shelter them from rain, and a release door that we open upon graduation. After countless hours of night observations and regular health checkups by sloth technicians like myself, this resilient pair of sloths has proven themselves physically and behaviorally fit for life in the wild. In other words, Hanna and Ellie have just graduated! Instead of receiving a diploma to hang up in their favorite tree, we gave these two sloths the greatest gift of all: freedom. We activated their radio tracking collars, opened the release door, and connected a thick rope through it to a tree outside.
Cross your fingers with me, and the rest of the sloth team here at Sarapiqui, that Hanna and Ellie will find the courage to leave their enclosure soon, and finally experience true freedom in the wild.
Written by Sloth Technician of the Saving Sloths Together Project: Duncan Coleman & Edited by Lyndsie Kiebert of Kiebert Edits
Donate to Hanna and Ellie through the Saving Sloths Together Project.
