Costa Rica Animal Rescue Center — Attraction in Turrúcares

Please be aware: contrary to what this Center's website liberally advertises, you will NOT be allowed to touch the animals. It's no longer a 48-hour waiting period; it just isn't allowed at all, apparently by edict of the federal government. If that's the truth, I understand the mandate for the sake of the animals' wellbeing, but don't go there expecting to hold a baby sloth. I'd spent the last decade hoping to go to Costa Rica so that I could hold a sloth, and I specifically chose this place because of all the videos volunteers have posted of them doing just that. No longer true. When I urged the volunteer coordinator to remove the videos from the website because of how misleading they are, I'm pretty sure she just ignored me. I think they're using that false promise as a way to sucker people in to come work there.

I'm not convinced the animals are getting the right kind of attention, either. The raccoons and a couple of the howler monkeys freely jumped on us and tried to play, but we weren't supposed to touch back. That was especially difficult with Feluco and Blue, both monkeys who had spent years living with humans and still obviously crave and ask for human interaction. The howlers almost never howl (only one short, quiet howl that whole week), which I think says a lot about their wellbeing. Worst, the sloths--none of whom are going to be released, as I understand--are allowed to mate and have babies in the Center. There were already two mothers with babies there when we arrived, and a third baby was born just after we left. This place is literally breeding animals into captivity.

Also ridiculously unorganized when we arrived. The volunteer coordinator had taken that week off to be at the birth of her daughter's first baby; completely understandable. I'm sure the center had known about this planned absence in advance, but instead of delegating the duties to another staff member who was knowledgeable about the animals and how to promote teamwork and productivity, someone had put the most irresponsible and disrespectful volunteer in charge. He ruined a lot of morale, teased the animals, and was allowed to do so for the first four days of our stay there. A lot of volunteers also left after our first two days, which was really hard because we were down to 1-2 people per team to do work that should be done by 4-6 people. When the coordinator did come back, the center opened its doors to 70 teenage students and a few of their teachers. WAY too many people! By the time they left, the poor peacock had lost all of its tail feathers because it was so stressed out, and I'm sure a lot of the other animals felt the chaos, too. This place needs a schedule for volunteers to sign up on, allowing for an adequate number of volunteers but not too many.

As far as the volunteers' experience went, the worst thing that happened was a baldfaced theft. A bunch of volunteers went out one night to go to a nearby bar, and they got back into the Center through a hole in the wall that apparently has been there for a long time. Someone followed them, and a half-hour after everyone was back and things quieted down, that someone walked right into our friend's room, flipped on the light, and stole her tablet from where it was charging on the next bed over. THIS ISN'T EVEN THE FIRST TIME this exact kind of theft has happened here!! It has happened before, after people went out to the bar and sneaked back through the hole in the Center's wall, and the Center never fixed that hole. For working our butts off every day, we should have at least been safe from crazies brazen enough to walk right into the dorms and swipe our stuff.

The only reason I'm giving two stars is because we met some very cool volunteers there. If you decide to go, I suggest you contact them first and make SURE Sarita, the volunteer coordinator, will actually be present, and ask how many other people are currently scheduled for the time you're hoping for--although I don't know how much good that will do, because I imagine that they accept volunteers up to the...

Unfortunately, this place is nothing like they advertise on their website. I am a biology student with wildlife rescue experience, and this summer I wanted to go to Costa Rica to volunteer and gain more experience. The website is very misleading about the volunteer and internship opportunities they offer, leading to an abundance of upset people. Many of the people during my stay on the vet team decided to leave early, including myself. Despite their advertisement of a veterinary internship, they no longer offer anything like that, but they will still accept your application and money for it. I wasn't told until about a week in that the program I signed up for was non-existent, and at that point I had already payed for my month long stay. One volunteer was asked to 'not leave a bad review' by the owner, which that alone raised some red flags. Not only does the website need a revamp and update, but so does the whole center including leader and ownership. The owner/cofounder keeps baby sloths inside her home in incredibly small cages. The only time I would see them out was when there were large tour groups visiting, and she would call them over to gawk at the baby sloths, letting them get waaay too close for photos. For someone that claims to love these animals, she really doesn't not seem to have any interest in releasing them, if if they are healthy enough to do so. She has no boundaries with the animals, getting them normalized to human interaction, so that can be used as the reason to not release. She went would wake up nocturnal animals so they could be shown off to tourists, instead of educating the public about their natural behaviors. The general volunteer coordinators were so inexperienced, and knew very little about the animals, to no fault of their own. The one staff coordinator tried her best, but I feel she was dumped into the position with no training or information about the animals. The vet was the go to person it seemed, and she also was newer and trying her best to get the work done, and care for the animals. Often times the necessities at the hospital were overlooked on the shopping like, or went ignored, including simple things like medication, gloves, and cleaning supplies. A few times volunteers on the vet team, including myself, went to town to buy the things we needed/asked for for the hospital. The medication we needed was readily available at vet supply stores, but when we needed it and added it to the list, it was rarely purchased.

The thing that concerned me the most was when the owner kept a severely injured sloth in her house, and had it 'teeated' by a different vet. This animal was suffering from a horrible electrocution, and exposed fracture. It was kept in a small kennel in the house, getting minimal care. After a WEEK of it being there the owner finally let the on staff vet up there to give it much needed pain medications. I was asked to assist one of the times, and had to stand by while the vet was pleading with the owners for the permission to treat the sloth properly at the animal hospital. This poor animal was clearly suffering from some terrible wounds. I expected to see some bad wounds and sad cases, I never expected to help rescue a suffering animal from the owners of the rescue.

If you are wanting to support wildlife rescue and rehabilitation (with intention or those animals being released back into the wild) I'd advise you visit another center. This center, located in Turrúcares, is just a place of animal...

This place felt like pretty much a pure money-making scheme. sure they have wounded exotic animals here that are cared for, and they have maybe three people on staff who has some kind of education or experience working with animals, but when I stayed here we were about 30-40 volunteers, the main work regarding the animals were done within like an hour after the morning and afternoon meetings, the rest of the day was spent doing stuff with no relation to the animals at all, it was more about renovating the center like building shelves for the volunteers rooms or krating the ground or helping the cooks in the kitchen. There were way to many people for the amount of work and you stood around feeling quite useless most of the time, and more volunteers just kept arriving every day. You don't get to interact with the animals the two first days, which would be fair enough if those days were spent learning about how to interact with them, but mostly it was just the ones who had been at the center for a long time who took care of all the work regarding the animals, not really interested in teaching the new ones or answering questions (as they didn't seem to know that much either, and you felt quite annoying or stupid for asking questions as you often got a very vague or short answer) and so you spent a lot of time washing food bowls or emptying buckets of animal poo. No gloves or safety equipment are handed out to the volunteers despite doing a lot of hard labour, nor any safety measures seem to really exist, and it seems to be more of a "do what you think might work" kind of spirit. When asking to leave early the owner was very accommodating but when asking for some of the money back (as you pay $30 per day and have to stay minimum a week) he completely refused, claiming they only had $200 in their bank account. The money they earn from the volunteers staying there seem to go more into pockets of the owners as they seem to be able to afford really fancy and big city jeeps and vans that looked brand new, while not being able to afford to buy gloves for the volunteers or sufficient tools to work with (the tools they gave you to work with seem almost to have been found laying beside the road, rusty and pretty useless). The beds were in really bad shape, the food was not particularly nutritious or varied (although you often got a lot so at least you didn't leave the table hungry most of the meals, even if it was just mostly pasta and beans that they served), simple things like the broken shower door they seemed unable to fix, yet taking money they were very good at. Sure the center seem to have quite a sad background story and were forced to move from its previous location during tragic circumstances, but from its appearance it seem to mostly be a money making scheme nowadays, considering every volunteer pay $210 for a one week stay at least, making it $6,300 for 30 volunteers per week that they earn, or $25,200 per month. If you want to work a lot with hands on hard labour (and paying for it), not really learn anything useful except cleaning animal poo and cutting vegetables and you have a DIY-attitude, this might be for you, but to be all honest this is more of a "big farm which houses a lot of wounded animals but with no idea how to" place, and not an animal...