Meet the Poo lady

Claire the self proclaimed 'poo lady' looks after the baby sloths.  She keeps track of their toilet stops, they get weighed before and after so when we were in charge of a particular baby sloth we had to watch out for it descending to the ground as either it was heading for the toilet or making a break for the wild.

This is Claire supervising a little one going for a poo

Back at the nursery he gets weighed

'I'll take that one please', being issued a baby at the nursery was like a counter of a sloth shop.

Our favourite activity was walking the adult Bradys or three toed sloths around the garden to give them some stimulation.  They have nine vertebrae in their neck so they look very odd with their long necks and heads spinning round to look at trees as we walk past with them.  Ralph thinks they must have been Steven Spielbergs` inspiration for E.T.  Other than these walks they get no time outside or opportunity to see anything other than each other.  We all felt very sad taking them back to their cages.

FI modelling a three toed sloth

Fiona and Samantha

I am now scared of going bald

Jay the entomologist  had a soft spot for Felice a particularly friendly Bradypus.

On one of our night walks we came across a huge stick insect, too big even for Jay to pin for his collection!  All the photographers in the group wanted to keep it for taking photos of the next day so we found an enormous tupperware box from the kitchen normally used as the bread bin to house it overnight.  Now I know I have form for this after a university pet stick insect`s end of term journey in a Tupperware container ended in tragedy but I can reassure readers that no stick insects were harmed in this Tupperware.

The bus stop here is hard to miss

Fiona got to go out into the forest everyday, while I had to stay behind and write communications strategies etc. One afternoon I managed to get out to hack down some banana trees, it is a great stress reliever. This is me and non-entomologist Jay emerging from the jungle on a new trail we had just bush whacked.

Entomologist Jay chauffeur boats Ralph back from the trail after he ran back to collect a mosquito larvae sample he found on the new trail. 

Fiona is the crocodile hunter, this is one of our many night time canoe rides

Fiona bushwhacking, she got to run around all day here is another blog (i know traitor) about the work she was doing http://slothsanctuary.blogspot.com/2012/03/where-is-aviarios-and-sloth-project.html 

Meanwhile I was stuck behind a computer all day

This blog post was a little short of sloth pics