Disabled sloth lived his best life in final days

Transcript

00:00 They found him on the ground. He was just a few days old.

00:03 My name is Leslie and this is Robin's story for Gia Beans.

00:07 I'm the founder of the Chicken Rescue Ranch. We've been rescuing animals here in Costa Rica since 2004.

00:14 Robin came to us as a newborn baby. He had the umbilical cord still attached.

00:19 He was very weak and baby sloths have to be able to be strong enough when they're born to hold on to mom as she's

00:26 moving and if the baby's really weak and not crying then my mom won't come down and get him.

00:32 We had to keep him in an incubator because he was so tiny.

00:35 He had some deformities that we noticed right off. Three-toed sloths have the claws that are together like this

00:42 and his were like fanned out

00:45 like this all the time and then his feet were curled in. So we were doing different kinds of therapy with him.

00:52 Physical therapy and

00:55upuncture and light therapy to try to get him more mobile.

00:58 When the baby sloths come in we have a whole graduated program for them.

01:04 We call it preschool where they do their exercise and we have structures for them to climb on.

01:10 And as Robin grew he was able to pull himself up and get around a little bit better. Go Robin go!

01:15 He's trying. Yeah. Trying his best.

01:21 Yes. We hung things in front of him so that he would like a rope with knots in it so that he would try to pull

01:27 himself up on the rope and also pull himself up to eat leaves because that's an important function that sloths have to do.

01:33 And Robin was able to do that. And so that was really a big moment.

01:38 He was so sweet. Sloths have a permanent smile, but in his case it almost looked even more exaggerated.

01:46 He really enjoyed being outside in the sun and climbing on the structure pulling himself up and trying to climb.

01:52 There was nothing like about oh, I'm handicapped. So I'm just gonna sit here.

01:56 One of the interesting things is that they have different number of vertebrae. Most mammals have seven cervical vertebrae in their neck.

02:03 Tree-toed sloths have up to nine and they can turn their heads around like owls.

02:07 Also, the fur on sloths grows what we call backwards.

02:12 The fur in the sloths comes from the belly and grows up. And that's so that they can curl themselves up in a ball in the forest

02:19 and the rain will just go off their back and they're keeping their organs nice and warm and tucked in.

02:24 They hardly smell at all. So predators, it's difficult for them to find.

02:29 He passed away in September and it was such a sad day for all of us. He was just a very, very loving personality.

02:42 I remember times when I would be feeding him and he would take his other hand and he would just hold on to my finger,

02:48 you know like this and I would be like, I've got you, sweetie.

02:52 [Music]

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02:59 (upbeat music)