Costa Rica Rescue Center Raises $20K to Save Wildlife

When howler monkeys and sloths mistake power cables for vines, they encounter up to 35,000 volts instead of the safe branches they need to cross fragmented forests.

The Jaguar Rescue Center near Puerto Viejo has partnered with Ma Earth to raise $20,000 that will insulate 50 electrical transformers across Costa Rica's South Caribbean region. The goal is simple: stop wildlife from dying on power lines that have become improvised bridges through broken habitat.

Encar García, who founded the center 17 years ago, started the insulation project after receiving countless electrocuted primates and sloths. These cases almost always end in euthanasia, amputation or months of painful recovery. When mothers are electrocuted, their babies are often left orphaned.

The numbers paint a grim picture. The center received seven electrocuted animals in one recent week alone, and took in 53 throughout 2024. International Animal Rescue reports nearly 100 electrocutions annually just in the Nosara area, and roughly 90% of shocked animals die from injuries caused by voltages 200 times stronger than a household outlet.

Costa Rica's national electric utility will install the insulation materials at locations recording the most animal deaths. García says her center has been testing different insulation types imported from the United States, working directly with utility workers to solve problems like sloths reaching across contact plates with their long arms.

The Ripple Effect

The conservation effort is already showing what's possible when communities act. After 111 aerial crossings and insulated cables were installed at Playa Hermosa in Guanacaste between 2015 and 2021, the local howler monkey population jumped from 59 to 99 individuals while annual deaths dropped from five to just one.

A 2024 presidential decree requires all electrical utilities to prevent wildlife deaths through insulation, wildlife crossings and regular monitoring of problem zones. Conservation groups say implementation has lagged, but the legal framework now exists. Meanwhile, lawmakers approved a wildlife crossings bill by 56 votes to zero, requiring public infrastructure to guarantee safe passage where roads fragment animal habitat.

The Jaguar Rescue Center operates entirely on donations and takes in around 1,000 animals yearly. This isn't their first fundraising campaign to pay for transformer insulation, and with electrocutions still rising as tourism development expands, it won't be their last.

But every insulated transformer means monkeys and sloths can safely cross from tree to tree, just like they're meant to.