my!placement!was!at!the!sloth!sanctuary!of!costa!rica ... ·...
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http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/industrialexperience/ Becky Cliffe Where did you go for your placement year? My placement was at the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica (http://www.slothsanctuary.com/) which is essentially a small, family run center dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of the two species of sloth found out in Costa Rica. Unfortunately sloths have quite a bad reputation with a lot of the local people as being lazy and a 'deadly sin', so the sanctuary also
does a lot of community education work with local schools etc. Because they receive no government funding, in order to support themselves they also run a small hotel, volunteer program and are open to the public for guided tours. Surprisingly very little is known about sloths -‐ even the most basic knowledge such as their natural diet is still largely a mystery -‐ so the biggest problem for the sanctuary has always been trying to conserve an animal without knowing anything about it. As a result, they can't release any of the hand-‐raised orphans and so are slowly accumulating a fairly large collection of permanent resident sloths (I think it stands at about 160 now). Considering they can live for over 30 years this is causing them quite a problem, which is why they have been desperate for someone to come and do the research! This is where my project came in! What were you working on for your project and what was a typical day like? Although I couldn't work with wild sloths, the sanctuary really needed to have a reliable set of baseline data on many aspects of simple captive sloth biology and behavior, with the idea that this info could be used for comparisons with wild sloths in the future. With this in mind, my project , after many modifications throughout, aimed to investigate the effect of ambient temperature on body temperature, food intake, activity and respiration rate, and to document any changes in these, alongside defecation frequency, due to the onset of oestrus. I should probably point out that all the previous literature on sloths claims they can't thermoregulate or breathe more than 8 times a minute, and sleep for 22 hours a day (all things that, as it turned out, definitely aren't true). And the oestrus cycle length was a complete mystery! So my typical day was split probably 50/50 between project work and other duties. For my project I had to collect data (ambient & body temperatures, humidity, respiration rates) every 4 hours around the clock for 7 months. Which unfortunately meant getting up at 3am every morning and no days off! I was also responsible for all the husbandry of the 3 sloths in my study... so cleaning and feeding. Because I was measuring food intake I had to weigh out the leaves and dry / weigh any uneaten food (and poo). I was working with some technology called the Daily Diary (http://rolexawards.com/en/the-‐laureates/rorywilson-‐laureates-‐join-‐forces.jsp) which monitored my sloths activity which meant I spent a lot of time downloading / analysing data, soldering broken things back together and recharging batteries etc. Aside from all that, the rest of my days were spent helping out in all areas of the sanctuary -‐ primarily giving public tours, veterinary work, husbandry (being mum to lots of sloth babies) and fund raising / advertisement -‐ all of which was great fun! How did the Faculty support you on placement? Unfortunately, I had no on-‐site scientific guidance out there, which was difficult, but the Faculty were great at supporting me from the Manchester end. My supervision was through Andrew Gray from the Manchester Museum and Prof. Rory Wilson from Swansea University, and so if I ever had a problem I could contact either of them. The lack of guidance was hard at first as my original project didn't go to plan, but the Faculty actually flew Andrew Gray out for a couple of days to come and help sort out the problems and get things back on track.
What was the highlight of the experience for you? A particular highlight is nearly impossible to choose, the whole experience was by far the best year of my life! The founders of the sanctuary have become like a second family and I have learnt more than I could have ever imagined possible. I think the overwhelming highlight was by far the general experience of working with the sloths, they truly are the most incredible animals! The single part that comes to mind is probably assisting with the birth of the world’s first recorded sloth twins that was a very special moment. And of course having the chance to meet a whole range of really inspirational people from all corners of the world. Has the placement impacted on your future career plans? I think it's probably fair to say that this placement has completely changed and made my future career plans! If all goes to plan, I hope to start my PhD back out at the sanctuary after I graduate, using the same Daily Diary technology as in this project, but furthering the work onto wild sloths. I want to find out everything we can about their natural activity and behaviors, particularly their diet and ranging patterns. There is so much we still need to know about them, it's more than a careers worth! -‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐ Content for News in Brief http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/schoolsandcommunity/newsandevents/newsinbrief/ Zoology student Becky in Sloth documentary Becky Cliffe a final year Zoology student has recently come back from her placement this year at the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica a small, family run center dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and release of the two species of sloth found out in Costa Rica. Very little is known about sloths -‐ even the most basic knowledge such as their natural diet is still largely a mystery -‐ so the sanctuary has struggled with trying to conserve an animal without knowing anything about it. Additionally, this lack of information about wild sloths means the sanctuary has been unable to successfully release any of their growing number of residents into the wild. The sanctuary invited Becky to come and do some research sloth biology and behavior in the hope that this would be a first step towards being able to release some sloths back into the wild. Becky features in a documentary, which covers day-‐to-‐day sanctuary life and follows her research as well as all the rescues and sloth baby dramas -‐ guaranteed to be very cute! It will premier in the UK in the new year on Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. To find out more about the work of the sanctuary please visit: http://www.slothsanctuary.com/ To read more about Becky’s project see: http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/courses/industrialexperience/