KSTR – January 2022

Hi Everyone—Dani Here!
We wish you all a Prosperous, Healthy, and Happy New Year in Beautiful Costa Rica.

Today I want to tell you about a few of the injured animals at our sanctuary, and what we need to do to prepare them to go back to the wild. The two animals I want to tell you about are Patricia, an injured Heron, and Teo, an injured Titi Squirrel Monkey.

Patricia is a Heron who was found orphaned, with an injured leg. She had to be immobilized, and her leg had to be bandaged so that it could heal. Because she was immobilized, she needs to learn how to hunt for her own food before she can be released.  

When I was volunteering at KSTR, I helped to feed Patricia, shortly after she came in. Because she couldn’t swallow on her own, we used a technique where we would put a small piece of fish in her mouth, and give her a few seconds to chew it—once she had chewed it, we helped her get it down her gullet with our fingers! Now that she is back on her feet, we are teaching her how to catch live fish, by putting live fish in a tray, and allowing her to hunt and catch the fish on her own. This is crucial, because if she can’t catch her own food, she won’t survive in the wild—and one of KSTR’s goals is to release animals from the sanctuary and see them be successful in the wild.

Teo is a baby Titi Monkey (Squirrel Monkey) and came to the sanctuary because he was electrocuted by high voltage wires. After his fall, he was unable to move his arm by himself, and wouldn’t eat anything. We worked on getting him to eat, and after a few days, he started to lick small pieces of watermelon, and eat a banana watermelon smoothie! To help his body recover from the injury, we have been massaging his arm each day for stimulus, and to keep the circulation strong, and he’s started to move on his own! We hope to see him fully recovered soon, so we can release him back into the wild to his troop 😊

In our next article, I will tell you all about how we release these wonderful animals back into the wild after they have recovered.

I hope you enjoyed hearing Teo and Patricia’s story, and Happy New Year!!!