By Wendy Anders

The hugely-liked online animal lovers’ The Dodo recently published a report by two veterinarians on the “nightmares” they witnessed while working at the Cahuita, Limón-based Sloth Sanctuary.

Overgrown nails from the lack of trees to climb, overgrown canines from an improper diet, miscarriages by stressed females sloths, fighting among crowded animals, and severe medical neglect were just some of the many horrors documented in photos by the veterinarians, who say the sanctuary often has not had veterinarians on staff.

Veterinarian couple Camila Dunner, from Chile, and her husband, Gabriel Pastor of Uruguay, moved to Cahuita in May 2015 to work at the Sanctuary.

Dunner and Pastor described how the sloths on display for visitors are just a small number of the total animals, and that over 200 other sloths are kept in the back in tiny cages.

“‘These are solitary animals but they are kept in pairs or up to four individuals per cage,’” Dunner said. ‘The ones that are lucky enough to be on their own are constantly fighting … with their neighbor.’ One graphic photo provided to The Dodo shows a sloth named Roxie whose scalp was ripped off her head.”

The Dodo contacted Gerald Richardson, the Sloth Sanctuary’s press contact, who declined to comment on the allegations saying they comply with the Environmental Ministry regulations, and that “he didn’t want to get involved in a ‘he said/she said situation.’”

When Dunner and Pastor raised concerns over what they saw as poor living conditions, inadequate diets, and lack of veterinary care that were leading to many sick and injured animals, they met resistance by sanctuary owner, Judy Avey-Arroyo, reported The Dodo.

The couple soon realized that the sanctuary had no intention of releasing the animals back to the wild, and also claimed some animals were even kidnapped from the forest to live at the sanctuary that they felt was simply a money-making business, said The Dodo.

“On the rare occasion when animals were released, it wasn’t always kind, Pastor and Dunner said. Nutmeg and her young baby, Cinnamon, were initially taken in after trying to cross a road, despite being perfectly healthy. When the Sloth Sanctuary decided to release an animal for a taping of the TV show “Ocean Mysteries With Jeff Corwin,” Nutmeg was ‘separated by force’ from Cinnamon and dropped back in the jungle without her infant, the vets said. The sanctuary kept her baby,” wrote The Dodo.

The former workers also reported that the sanctuary appears to be actively breeding sloths, as females and males are caged together, which the veterinarians felt was cruel and exacerbated the animals’ stress levels.

They said “One mother, Stephanie, attacked and killed her baby, a young female named Venus, said Dunner, who provided photos of the autopsy to The Dodo.”

Dunner and Pastor reported, ”’They used to call these events as ‘happy accidents,’ which embarrassed us greatly, since each of those births could have been avoided, and it condemned those offspring into captivity [since the sanctuary wouldn’t release them],’” Dunner said.

Dunner and Pastor ultimately felt overwhelmed by having to deal with the symptoms they found in sloths who had experienced years of neglect and mistreatment, they told The Dodo. The requested the The Dodo hold their report until they had left Costa Rica for fear of reprisals for revealing their observations.

The Dodo managed to contact other former sanctuary workers who had similar reports but who feared making public statements.

The stated mission of the Sloth Sanctuary is to save and rehabilitate lost and injured sloths; the organization was featured in Animal Planet’s 2013 series “Meet the Sloths.”