The first person to drive me around Quepos, Costa Rica when I moved here two years ago was Chip Braman. A silver-haired, tan-skinned, distinguished gentleman who looks much younger than his 72 years, Chip moved to the Quepos and Manuel Antonio area on the central Pacific coast 18 years ago from Connecticut. After spending 30 years traveling the globe as the international marketing director for Avon, Chip was ready for a change. Costa Rica’s pristine natural environment, affordable cost of living, and friendly people made the country an easy choice.

“It doesn’t even matter if you don’t speak Spanish,” says Chip. “Look at anyone here in Costa Rica, smile, and say ‘pura vida’ with that thumbs up, and I guarantee, he’s going to say it right back at you. And you’ll realize: You know what, he’s right. It’s all pura vida here. It’s a good day, and it’s beautiful.”

Chip soon met an ambitious expat named Jennifer Rice, then 44, who was the founder of a hotel called the Mono Azul, (or “Blue Monkey”). Her husband had died a few years before, but she was helping her young daughter Janine, then 9, and her friend Aislín start a fledgling nonprofit organization. Chip fell in love with both Jennifer and the idea, and the rest is history.

Kids Saving the Rainforest is now a 20-year-old non-profit in Quepos that rescues and rehabilitates wildlife, runs a sanctuary and educational tours, plants trees, and puts up life-saving wildlife bridges over roads in Manuel Antonio. Chip and Jennifer have since sold the Mono Azul and have retired to life at the sanctuary. They now have much more time to devote to their ecological passion and are living their dream here in the rainforests of Costa Rica.

Both he and Jennifer are active members of the vibrant local expat community in Quepos, and over the years they’ve spent here, they have made firm friends with people from all over the world. Chip does his accounting overlooking the lovely swimming pool of the Blue Banyan Inn—a complex consisting of three luxury cottages he has built on his property outside of Quepos. Running a business, as well as helping out with the sanctuary, has had its challenges, but nothing they couldn’t handle. As Chip puts it: “Nothing ever happens like you expect it to. But at the end of the day, it all works out and you’re still in Costa Rica.”

Even if things get busy at times, it’s still retirement. Chip finds plenty of time for his favorite pastime: sketching the plants and animals that inspire him in the surrounding rainforest. He’s also surrounded by a motley crew of volunteers from all over the world: wildlife veterinarians, biologists, and other people dedicated to the cause—a true family he has brought together.

That laidback attitude of Chip’s rubs off too. Recently, I was standing in the bus station at Quepos—the local hub for cheap and mostly comfortable transport to the rest of Costa Rica. (Ten dollars will get you from Quepos to San José, the capital, in about four hours.) I had just missed a series of three buses to visit a beach I had never yet been to. I heard that saying of Chip’s in my head.

It’s true. When you make the adjustment, Costa Rica’s relaxed pace gets to be a benefit, not a frustration. I spotted a stand with soda and empanadas selling for less than a dollar. The public bus would take me to the beach in Manuel Antonio in less than 10 minutes for about 70 cents, as long as I had the patience to wait.

I headed for the empanada stand, and who did I run into buying a bus ticket to the capital city? Chip himself. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, and he repeated his saying onsite for effect. I grabbed an empanada and pineapple soda. Pretty soon, I was on my bus, the cool breeze blowing away the heat of the day. Chip was right, and the day was beautiful.

​If you’re in the Quepos area and want to pay Chip a visit, he offers warm hospitality, a booming greeting, and a hearty handshake when the Kids Saving the Rainforest wildlife sanctuary offers educational tours (9 a.m., every day but Tuesday). He’ll have plenty of advice to give you on living the laidback lifestyle in Costa Rica.

Story taken from the International Living Magazine Oct. 2019 Vol. 40 No. 6 Pg. 8. 
Click here to download the issue

Hello from Kids Saving the Rainforest Animal Rescue and Sanctuary & Reforestation project!

Is it really 2020 already? 2019 was a great year for KSTR as we planted 10,000 on our reforestation property and treated many kinds of birds, sloths, kinkajous, monkeys, anteaters, coatis, porcupines, and other wild animals at our onsite vet clinic.  We also celebrated our 20th year anniversary in 2019.

We want to bring the New Year in right by thanking all of our donors, sponsors, and supporters of 2019.

Thanks to you all, our first 5K Rainforest Run was a huge success! So many people asked us to do it again next year, that it is now a tradition!!  So save the date for November 22, 2020!

This years finish line!

Everyone that ran the race had a tree planted in their name!
​(Ok, 2 year old Mariana didn’t run the race but she posed for the picture!)

These were the fabulous t-shirts for the racers!

And last but not least, our Sloth Mascot!  And yes, you can take a sloth selfie with him!

KSTR teamed up to help the Costa Rican government to promote “No Selfies With The Wildlife”.  The only wildlife that can be in pictures with humans are Plush Wildlife.  
This is our KSTR Staff to promote “No Selfies With The Wildlife”. 

Please remember to not take pictures with the wildlife, it is very stressful for them! They are voiceless so we are speaking for them!  

Many of you know that we have been teaching people not to feed the wildlife for over 15 years.  It started with 7 Reasons Not to Feed the Wildlife, then went to 10 Reasons and we are thrilled to say that there a now 11 Reasons because the government is enforcing the law if anyone does feed them.  

We have been disappointed to hear that people are still feeding them for personal and professional gain. The Mangrove Tours are feeding the white-faced monkeys to get them to come onto the boats and even let the tourists feed them. Hotels and Restaurants are feeding them to bring more tourists to their businesses.  

We have said for a long time that we are going to publish the names of the locations that are feeding them.  We never have because we want to live in harmony with the community.  But this is too important to allow it to happen anymore.  So please save the wildlife by reporting anyone feeding the wildlife to:
​jennifer@kstr.org

If you are feeding the wildlife, you now know you should stop. If you don’t stop, we owe it to the wildlife to publish your name with the local media and report you.

Wishing you all the best for the coming year, 2020!

Although our clinic is not equipped to handle a bear, it is perfectly capable of handling a tamandua! After I brought the squawking box into the clinic, the little anteater was checked over and moved to the nursery. There, she's been given the name Tinker, and she'll grow up for several months before being moved to the pre-release area. ​

​Additionally, I've concluded my internship project and presented the results of my work to the staff at KSTR. As I mentioned previously, I was trying to determine how long it takes for the kinkajous to habituate, or become bored of, enrichments that are put in their cage. From my data, I was able to conclude that interest in enrichments sharply drops off after just one day, which is unsurprising given the intelligence and dexterity of these animals. I recommended an enrichment schedule to the staff in the sanctuary, and now I will be working on writing up a protocol on the enrichments that I used, to provide ideas for future enrichments. I was glad that despite all of the technical difficulties and frustration involved, I was able to get results from my research that are going to help improve the care we are giving the animals.

I want to give a final update on the capuchin training because there is great news! After months of working with Hector, he came into the shift cage during training last week on multiple occasions! This is fantastic because it not only means that the clinic can conduct their physical exams soon, but it also shows that he is learning to trust the people that are taking care of him. With this foundation, we can continue to build on the training we are doing to allow us to more easily treat any medical conditions and provide a stimulating challenge for the capuchins. Moncho's training continues to progress as well; before I left, I went for a walk through the sanctuary and called out to him as I passed the capuchin cage. From the other side of the cage, he turned his head, then leaped and climbed over to where I was standing. This indicates to me that he recognizes his name and associates it with positive rewards, and it was also good to see him one last time before heading out.

​Occasionally, Chicky needs to be brought into the clinic from his outdoor cage in rehab to receive mediation and check-ups. I'm usually the one to go out with gloves and a basket to catch him, and he always protests with loud alarm calls when he is caught. When bringing him back from rehab to the clinic, I pass by the squirrel monkey cage in the sanctuary. Once as I was passing under this cage, Chicky in hand,  I looked up to see not only the captive squirrel monkeys, but also the habituated wild troop staring at me, hostile black eyes following my every movement. Chicky's alarm calls had alerted them to the presence of a threat in their environment, and once it became clear that I was the threat, they immediately put on aggressive and intimidating body language to make sure that I knew I was not welcome!

Skittles and Dewo are intrigued by the target held by a staff member. This small orange ball on a stick is usually used to train the capuchins, but the titis are also fascinated by this strange object.

​Skittles, the alpha monkey of our captive troop, stares at the visitors to the cage.

So many other things have been going on! I wish I could go on and on about it all, but to avoid writing a whole novel here I'll add some photos below to summarize the past couple of weeks. ​

​On release day, most of the staff and all the interns hiked out to the back of Kids Saving The Rainforest's property with the sloths in baskets. We found a tree for each sloth that they would easily be able to climb that didn't have bullet ants or other dangers dwelling on it. Ellen, the new vet tech, was releasing Speedy, which would be the first animal she had personally released. She opened the top of the basket and raised it up to a branch. Slowly, a paw with two long claws reached out, grabbed the branch, and Speedy pulled himself up into freedom. Patty was released in a nearby tree by Dani, the head of our nursery who had raised Patty from the moment she was brought into the nursery as an orphan. It was a special moment for everyone, and I was very lucky to be there to watch it. This won't be the last time I see Speedy and Patty though, because both sloths were released with a tracking collar and will be followed for several weeks with telemetry equipment that was bought with a generous donation to KSTR. When following the sloths, we will observe the them and collect post-release behavioral data to double check that the methods we use to rehabilitate these animals are effective and that the animals are surviving and thriving upon release.

Hello again from Kids Saving The Rainforest! 

​As promised in the last issue, I would like to introduce you to two very special baby sloths.  Dudley and Smokey are growing up together in our nursery. While their stories of how they got here are sad, they are both healthy and have each other to grow up with.​

Dudley came to us on July 23rd, 2019 after KSTR received a rescue call at a local hotel.  Dudley had fallen from her mother and she was unable to be reunited by hotel staff.  Dudley was very weak and her coloring was off when KSTR wildlife personnel arrived.  We had to make the tough choice of removing her and taking her to our clinic.  We photographed her mother and noted her location.
 
Our veterinarian and clinic staff did a full exam on Dudley and treated her.  She was found with a tick embedded in her fur and her weakness continued.  She regained her strength after a couple of days and we made Herculean attempts to reunite her with her mother.  Unfortunately, our attempts were unsuccessful and she was brought back to KSTR to be raised until she is ready for release back in the wild.

A fellow intern and I conducted behavioral observation to ensure that they were climbing well and showing natural activity schedules. Once we were certain they would survive in the wild, we took them out to an isolated patch of forest to release them. We decided to give them a soft release, and provided a nest box and food for them to get adjusted to their new home. When we opened up the doors of their kennel, they quickly climbed out and began to explore the trees and new scents around them. Pink has reappeared around a nearby house, but we hope this is an isolated incident and he will soon dwell solely in the forest where he belongs! Selah is doing great, and I'll be sure to include any updates about them in the future!

In addition to working with the kinkajous in rehab, I've gotten to know the sanctuary kinkajous pretty well. My research project involves putting up camera traps to monitor the two cages in the sanctuary, and when I began my project, I was blissfully unaware of how curious kinkajous are. I walked into Julian and Hillary's enclosure during the day when they were sleeping, and I started setting up the camera trap. A couple minutes later, I saw movement out of the corner of my eyes and suddenly Julian, the kinkajou that was supposed to be fast asleep, was right next to me!

He climbed up to the camera trap that I had so carefully placed inside the cage and began to paw and bite at it, and after he had thoroughly messed up all my hard work, he decided that I was the more interesting object in his enclosure. Moving more quickly than I could imagine, he climbed down a tree branch, crossed the ground to my leg, and promptly climbed up to my shoulder like I was some bizarre tree! Now, the rules of the sanctuary clearly state that interns are not allowed to touch, pet, or cuddle the animals, but I was never told what to do when the animal is on top of you! Unsure of what to do, I just waited, barely suppressing laughter, while he sniffed my hair, pawed at the radio on my belt, and chewed on my shirt. After a short while, he climbed back down to the ground, but since that incident I've learned my lesson and have started putting up the camera traps on the outside of their enclosures! From this close interaction, I also learned that despite the stinky rotting fruit rinds and poop they leave around their enclosure, kinkajous themselves actually smell quite nice! Their fur has a pleasant, nutty smell to it, which I would never have guessed before working with them. 


Citations: 
Kays R. Gittleman JL. 2001. The social organization of the kinkajou Potos flavus (Procyonidae). Journal of Zoology. 253(4): 491-504.
Kays RW. 1999. Food Preferences of Kinkajous (Potos flavus): A Frugivorous Carnivore. Journal of Mammalogy. 80:589-599. https://doi.org/10.2307/1383303

Karma Saving the Rainforest
By Karma Imagine Casey

Hello fellow Quepolandia readers! It's Karma Casey, the Kids Saving the Rainforest spokeskid! If you haven’t heard of KSTR, it’s a wonderful wildlife rescue and sanctuary non-profit right here in Quepos! They also plant trees and put up wildlife bridges in the area. For the last two years, I have been writing an article each month for Quepolandia, telling you all about KSTR and how to help the planet! This month's article is a little bit different than the rest. This is my farewell article, so you won’t be reading my byline at the top of the page anymore! 
Well, let's start from the beginning of my story. I was an eight year old girl who loved animals and wanted to help them, but I was too young to really help them where I lived. I was  just reading and researching about the majestic sloth (one of my favorite animals) when I saw the story about Jeannine and Aislin, the two nine year old girls who originally started Kids Saving the Rainforest. 

The girls lived in Manuel Antonio, and they could see that the rainforest was beginning to be destroyed. They began by painting rocks and selling other arts and crafts. With the money they raised, they would buy trees to plant. Kids Saving the Rainforest grew and grew, eventually getting permission from the Costa Rican government to open a wildlife sanctuary and veterinary clinic. It has been open for about twenty years now. Wow! That's a long time! 
I was so inspired by this story, that I decided to reach out to the amazing Jennifer Rice, the president of Kids Saving the Rainforest. I told her how it was my dream to come and help all the animals there.