Donate to Wildlife Rescue & Support KSTR 501(c)(3)
Help us help wildlife!
FEATURED PROJECTS
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Kids Saving the Rainforest runs a Wildlife Rescue Center with a wildlife veterinary clinic, where we treat and rehabilitate wounded, sick, and abandoned rescued rainforest animals on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. The team works with professional staff & volunteers to provide state of the art care for approximately 200 rescued animals yearly. Without this center, most of these animals would not survive! Our wildlife clinic & rescue center aims to restore health, rehabilitate, and release injured and displaced animals back into the wild. Tragically, many animals are injured or orphaned due to human-related causes, and the only way to help is with human intervention. The most common causes for rescues are electrocution injuries, car strikes, and issues related to the illegal pet trade or loose cats and dogs. Many come in with grave injuries, weak conditions, or are orphaned when their mothers die.
Our Clinic has a full-time Wildlife Veterinarian and Veterinary Technician offering excellent care, along with a Biologist and excellent support staff. We go where needed to help an animal and sometimes receive confiscated animals directly from a government entity. KSTR works closely with the Ministry of Environment and Energy of Costa Rica (MINAE) to help them rescue wildlife in the area and support them with environmental causes. Over the years, we have worked with an enormous # of different animals, such as monkeys, sloths, parrots, macaws, toucans, wildcats, kinkajous, coati, sea turtles, and many more!
Our center is extremely effective at successfully releasing healthy animals back into the wild, with an average 55% release rate, high above the norm. Our work is helping endangered species like the Squirrel Monkeys (Saimiri oerstedii) and the green sea turtles, and leatherback sea turtles (Chelonia mydas and Dermochelys coriacea).
RESCUE CENTER PROJECTS
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Do you want to help us save endangered sea turtles and other marine species?
These sea giants face many problems even before being born. Their eggs are really valuable in the illegal market, so lots of poachers will look for the nest to take out the eggs, or they’ll even kill the females to take the eggs from their bellies. KSTR works with a turtle Nursery that prevents eggs from being poached whilst ensuring they hatch and make it to the ocean safely.
Part of your donation will fund this effort, and the other portion will go to our Wildlife Rescue Center´s veterinary clinic and rehabilitation area to upgrade our Marine Conservation Center. Our equipment and facilities for marine wildlife need major upgrades in order to house multiple marine species and provide the best medical care possible to be able to rehabilitate and release them safely back to their habitat. Luckily we had a tank made quickly for our rescue, Leonidas!
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As you can see, our current wildlife ambulance is less than ideal…
The “Turbo Wagon” has done an excellent job over the years, but it’s on its last leg, and it’s time for us to move on.
We’re currently campaigning for two wildlife ambulances to aid in the rescue and rehabilitation of indigenous wildlife across Costa Rica.
These ambulances will travel across a 60-mile radius up and down the coast of Costa Rica. As we continue to expand as a wildlife rescue, it is our mission to guarantee that our equipment is up to date and can provide our wildlife with the most efficient and effective care.
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The clinic needs an X-Ray machine, so we can diagnose animals in a prompt and improved manner. Your support means that we can move forward in providing the best care and accommodation possible to help these rescued animals get well and strong enough to be free again!
SANCTUARY PROJECTS
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One of Kids Saving the Rainforest's missions is to protect, rescue, and rehabilitate wildlife back into the wild.
The causes of animals getting hurt are many. This can be due to direct destruction of their habitat, road accidents, electrocution, and some even orphaned babies. Some of the most commonly rescued species are monkeys, sloths, coatis, and even birds.
In addition to helping injured and abandoned animals regain their health and return to the wild, there are many animals that sadly cannot be released back into their habitat due to permanent injuries. They are reliant on humans to survive as they were raised in captivity due to the pet trade or/and have limitations that do not allow them to survive in the wild, so KSTR offers a safe sanctuary to them. Our unreleasable guests are given an environment in which they can thrive and enjoy life, along with great nourishment and care. Wildlife sanctuaries exist for many specific reasons, but the main reason is to protect animals. Animal sanctuaries offer a new home to animals that have been left behind and animals rescued from conditions that would otherwise threaten their life. That's why animal sanctuaries are incredibly important to wildlife and maintain Costa Rica's impressive biodiversity!
We strive to give the best care to KSTR ́s animals, working together with staff and volunteers to daily provide the best nutrition, enrichment, medical care, and good husbandry conditions. We work hard to make their enclosures and enrichments as close as to what they would get in their habitat. We take working very seriously according to animal welfare guidelines as well as working within the law of Costa Rica. We do not allow animal contact with wildlife or animal selfies and respect the animal ́s space and needs depending on their behavior to cause the least stress possible. We have a team of professionals to make sure we have the resources needed to provide the best care. We have professionals in the field of biology, veterinary technicians, wildlife veterinarians, behaviorists, and zoologists, and we have trained our staff to care for wildlife. All our staff are passionate about taking care of wildlife and have the same values about animal welfare, and all have the same goal for wildlife conservation.
We give sanctuary to parrots, monkeys, toucanets, sloths, kinkajous, coatis, and more!
We give educational guided tours of the sanctuary. All our tours are guided as the purpose of them is to educate visitors on conservation and explain the reason why the animals are in the sanctuary, and teach them the different ways they can help and have an impact on conservation, and we can all work together to avoid wildlife being affected in the first place.
We invite you to take a tour of the Kids Saving the Rainforest Wildlife Sanctuary and see in person the dedication and love it takes to help save these rainforest animals! Verified by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS).
WILDLIFE BRIDGE PROJECTS
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Donate to help save over 22 species with our wildlife bridges!
Kids Saving the Rainforest places wildlife bridges that cross above the roads of Manuel Antonio.
These bridges have been a critical life-saving feature of our program and have been instrumental in a population surge from 1200 "Titi" Squirrel monkey individuals in the local population to more than 4000, according to recent studies by wildlife biologist Lenin Rosales.
Kids Saving the Rainforest started installing bridges in the year 2000. The bridges were installed between trees, high off the ground, to give monkeys and other wildlife a safer option to pass over dangerous roads and cross between fragmented forests. This expands their range to access more food, keeping them more active and off the ground.
Human development has encroached on wild spaces to an astonishing extent. Most animals' home ranges and habitats have been fractured by roads, housing developments, logging routes, etc. Animals trying to move within their territory run the risk of being electrocuted by power lines and/or run over by cars. As a part of our plan to save the Squirrel Monkeys, Kids Saving the Rainforest places monkey bridges that cross above the roads of Manuel Antonio. With the help of The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), we continue to install bridges as needed and carefully maintain the bridges we've installed over the years. To date, we've installed over 130 bridges. Keeping the wildlife bridges safe and functional is an enormous job due to tropical storms and numerous other factors. With ICE, in our monthly monitoring, we make sure the branches of trees don't grow into live wires near bridges. The rope and clamps for the bridges are very costly, and each bridge costs up to $100!
KSTR has done studies and surveys of the bridges, including camera traps that have shown over 22 different species crossing the bridges.
EDUCATION IN CONSERVATION PROJECTS
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KSTR was founded by two 9-year-old girls in 1999 with the purpose of educating people around the world about the ecological importance of the rainforest and establishing programs to preserve and protect the rainforest and its wildlife.
Since then, KSTR has been dedicated to education, awareness, and sustainable development regarding the importance of conserving flora, fauna, and the environment. Kids Saving the Rainforest also supports and participates in research projects with local and international universities, researchers, and students. We believe that teaching the next generation about conservation is important as attitudes about the earth's natural resources begin at an early age. Raising awareness of conservation when children are young is especially important as it will lead them to be proactive adults concerned with the well-being of their environment and the world in which they live. In addition, we are dedicated to training institutions and individuals regarding conservation issues, forming a support network with leading community institutions, fighting together, and seeking solutions to conservation problems.
KSTR has been able to create outreach all around the world on the importance of conservation, from reforesting the rainforest by planting trees, rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife, creating solutions for human/animal conflict like our wildlife bridges, and educating on this and conservation issues.
At KSTR, we prioritize education, as it is our firm belief that it is through everyone's efforts that the rainforest can be saved and protected for the amazing animals that call it home. So we have created campaigns, events, and initiatives to propagate education in conservation all around the world.
Kids Saving the Rainforest aims to conduct educational and interactive talks and to train groups such as Schools, Universities, Institutions (Ministry of Health, Municipality, MINAE, Firefighters, Police, ICE), Public Officials, Community Systems (ASADAS), Businesses (Hotels, Restaurants, Tour Agencies), Representatives of the Chamber of Tourism and the Quepos Environmental Committee and other organizations. We also aim to create educational content that can be distributed to the community, such as educational pamphlets.
We create educational material and do presentations for interested schools/universities locally and internationally, tailored to what they require based on their educational program. For universities, we give presentations on conservation issues in Costa Rica and internationally, discuss solutions to these issues, as well as educational programs related to conservation medicine, wildlife medicine, ecology, and wildlife management. For local entities that work with wildlife conservation, we do training on correct and safe wildlife management so the animals receive the correct care and the management is safe for the person handling it and for the animal. We do workshops specifically on solutions the community can do to help wildlife and conserve the environment.
If you are interested in any tailored education opportunity for your school or organization, please get in touch with operations@kstr.org. We have also partnered with Solo Mundo Abroad to offer study abroad opportunities to students in the field of Ecology or Veterinary Medicine. You can find out more about these opportunities at https://solomundoabroad.com/.
REFORESTATION PROJECT
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Our Mission
It’s time to save our world. We believe saving the planet starts with each and every one of us. With your help, we have already planted over 18,000 trees, and our work is just beginning. The forest is a great place to begin as a solution for climate and biodiversity. With the continued help of you and many others, we plan to plant many more thousands of trees in the rainforest.
Why We Plant Trees
Trees are crucial for the survival of all living species on Earth. There are plenty of reasons why we plant trees. Here are a few:
- Combat climate change
- Store & reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere
- Creates many diverse economic opportunities
- Conserve energy, save water, and provide food to humans and wildlife
- Creates environments for wildlife habitats to thrive
Trees in the Rainforest
The rainforests help the local wildlife thrive, such as squirrels and white-faced monkeys, as well as three-toed sloths. Our plan is to plant a mix of native trees and fruit trees. Some of the species that will be planted are Manzana de Agua, Roble Cebo, Ron Ron, Pilon, Muneca, Lorita, Sota Caballo, Caoba, Hule, Aguacatillo, and Laurel Negro.
We need your support to plant trees in deforested areas and turn them into rainforests. Read more below to learn how you can adopt one of our trees so we can continue with the project!
Tech for Toucans
Learn about how you can donate your technology to help us save tropical wildlife. Donate iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, Samsung products, and more to receive a tax deduction certificate based on trade-in value.
