The Preserve was originally known as the farm “Los Cusingos”, after the small orange-billed toucan the Fiery-billed Aracari (Pteroglossus frantzii). It was acquired in 1941 by the botanist and ornithologist Dr. Alexander F. Skutch, (more info). A graduate of Johns Hopkins (1928), Dr. Skutch came to Costa Rica while studying the birds of the Tropics. His love for tropical nature and its people led him to settle in the Valley of Perez Zeledón, Costa Rica.

After a long and fruitful life of study, research and humanistic meditation, concentrated in his home, Los Cusingos, Dr. Skutch offered to sell his farm to the TSC, with the hope that this organization would further his line of work in the Tropics.

Thus, in 1993, after a fundraising campaign, the TSC acquired the 78 hectares that today constitute Los Cusingos Bird Sanctuary. Presently, the Sanctuary is dedicated not only to ecological tourism, bird observation and study, but also to meditation, as a historical place where this great scientist formulated the majority of his research and wrote outstanding works in the fields of natural science and philosophy..

Dr. Skutch and his wife Pamela Lankaster lived many years in the Los Cusingos farm and Sanctuary, where they built a beautiful rustic farm house which today stands in perfect harmony with the natural environment, bringing to life scenes of the rural Costa Rica of the turn of the 20th Century. A life of love and respect shared by Alexander Skutch and Pamela Lankaster inspired the novel “Merenda: A Romance of the Tropical Forests” published in 1997.

Mrs. Skutch proferred her love for nature to the gardens surrounding the house, following in her father´s footsteps when he established the Lankester Botanical gardens near the city of Cartago, presently owned and managed by the University of Costa Rica. She passed away on the 23rd of June, of 2001.

Dr. Skutch conducted many observations and studies at the Sanctuary about the characteristics, biological cycles and behavior of birds. The many years of study and meditation led him to reflect on the biological imperatives of life and the many natural mysteries encountered by man when he communes with nature. During this time period when he was being most productive, he wrote on the ethics and philosophy of the human species. Some of his most outstanding works include: Moral Foundation: An Introduction to Ethics, The Stories of a Naturalist, The Ascent of Life. Through the years, many scientists and students of natural philosophy became acquainted with his work and had an opportunity to visit him in his bird garden and meditation sanctuary.