Venezuelan Couple Rescues Injured Sloths, Nurses Animals Back to Health at Home Shelter
A three-toed sloth (Bradypus) at the Aiunau Foundation in Caldas, some 25 km south of Medellin, Antioquia department, Colombia on September 15, 2012. Croatian scientist Tinka Plese created the foundation 10 years ago, where sloths --which have been captured by illegal wildlife traffickers and then sold to people between US40 to 150 dollars-- are rescued, rehabilitated and released. More than 700 sloths have been released to date. RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP/GettyImages

After finding an injured sloth on the road a year ago, the Venezuelan couple, who rescued the animal, has opened a shelter for vulnerable animals at their home in Caracas, Venezuela.

According to Gulf Times, Venezuelan couple Juan Carlos Rodriguez and his wife Haydee were taking one of their dogs to a veterinarian when they found the sloth on the road. The sloth was suspected of having fallen from a power line after apparently suffering an electric shock.

Chuwie the Gentleman Rescue Centre in Venezuela

The couple took the Brown-throated sloth and dubbed him "Chuwie" after the furry Star Wars character Chewbacca.

After they were able to save his life despite still losing two hind limbs and claws of his left arm, the couple decided to open up a shelter for the vulnerable animals in their home. The Brown-throated sloth is common in parts of South and Central America.

The famously slow-moving animals obtained their nourishment and protection against predators by spending most of their time in tropical forests. But once they set their foot outside that environment, the sloths were prone to attack, injury, and even accidents.

The Venezuelan Couple's Rescue Center

The Chuwie the Gentleman Rescue Center has so far rehabilitated not less than 40 sloths and returned them to the wild. Haydee Rodriguez said she wanted the rescue center to be the NASA of sloths.

She also shared that she had plans to conduct research on sloths because of the limited knowledge about the animals in Venezuela.

Neither one among the Venezuelan couple is a veterinarian. But they have learned everything they need in providing treatment with the help of online training from experts in countries like Chile and Costa Rica.

The Venezuelan couple hoped to set aside 400 square meters of their 1,100-meter property by the middle of next year for them to be able to treat 50 sloths at a time.

Funding needs were limited, but sloths generally eat leaves which made the rescue operations not too expensive. The veterinarian friends of the couple in Chile also sent them donations of medicine for the animals.

The injuries that Chuwie sustained meant that he could not survive in the wild. So he has stayed on as a pet in Rodriguez's two-story home in San Antonio de Los Altos.

The area in the Caracas suburb was surrounded by verdant forest that is a natural habitat for sloths. However, other sloths were returned to the wild once they received numbers instead of names because the Rodriguezes do not want them to habituate to people.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Environment Programme said there were six species of sloths living in Central and South America. However, deforestation and degradation of tropical forests prompted them to leave and look for another place for habitat.

This article is owned by Latin Post

Written by: Jess Smith

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