After quitting six‑figure job, Mass. woman built a haven for these small, exotic animals

There are about 85 sugar gliders currently being cared for in this modified garage in Barre, Mass. as part of Sugar Haven Rescue's mission to care for these small animals. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.

As an animal lover, a Massachusetts woman took in two sugar gliders — wide‑eyed, soft‑furred creatures with what seems like tiny parachutes sewn into their sides — determined to give them a safe home. She spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours online, trying to learn everything she could to keep them healthy.

Leah Tower stands on a stool to reach over the top of a bank of cages in the Barre, Mass. facility on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.

Instead, she found a maze of conflicting and often dangerous advice. Before she could make sense of it, one of the sugar gliders died.

“I couldn’t find the right information,” Leah Tower said.

The loss changed the course of her life. Tower found a mentor, learned what had gone wrong and quit her six-figure job to focus on the animals. Now, about eight years later, Tower runs the largest sugar glider rescue in the United States.

Leah Tower opens a custom soft pouch that sugar gliders rest inside of in their cage in Barre, Mass. on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.

Sugar Haven Rescue

From the outside, it looks like an ordinary garage off a main road in Barre, a rural Massachusetts town of about 5,500 people in Worcester County. Inside, the small space holds about 85 sugar gliders, their cages stacked and filled with blankets and toys.

Sugar gliders love to be cozy and often be found hiding in sleeves and sweaters as pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

As snow piles up outside, the garage remains a steady 80 degrees, designed to meet the needs of the palm‑size marsupials native to Australia and nearby regions.

Sugar Haven Rescue currently cares for around 85 sugar gliders in their Barre, Mass. facility but has over 225 in their care throughout the country. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

And that’s not all of them.

The rescue is currently responsible for more than 220 sugar gliders across the country, some of them in foster homes. Last year, the rescue took in 304 sugar gliders and adopted out 182 of them.

As of Friday, they’re at capacity — unless there’s an emergency.

“A lot of times we say yes, even though it’s still hurting the rescue because how do you ... It’s one of those things. It’s like damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Tower said. “We’re at a point now where we are pretty much closed, aside from emergencies at the moment.”

The surrenders can often be large. She worked with one person who surrendered more than 100 sugar gliders. And they come from all over, including Ohio and Florida.

Tower currently has 25 sugar gliders that came from the same surrender and many of them are sick, requiring regular fluids and medicine. And some are just babies.

Leah Tower runs Sugar Haven Rescue helping to provide education on sugar gliders for pet owners and veterinarians alike. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

Three sugar gliders she took in had the first-ever documented cases of rabbit syphilis in a sugar glider. They were covered in lesions and their eyes were stuck shut. Two of them died.

A sugar gliders rests in its cage at Sugar Haven Rescue in Barre, Mass. on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.

“It was awful,” she said.

But the sugar glider named Jack pulled through, although he still deals with flare ups from the disease.

Melvin is a sugar glider in Sugar Haven Rescue. Melvin is blind and currently receives frequent treatment for glaucoma in one of his eyes. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

Another sugar glider, named Melvin, sat happily on Tower’s shoulder during a recent interview with MassLive. While all the other sugar gliders were asleep, Melvin searched for treats.

Sugar gliders are typically nocturnal animals. However, because Melvin is blind, he is unaware of what time it is, Tower explained. He has become an ambassador for the rescue, often traveling to events and helping teach people about the hamster-sized animals.

She took in her first sugar glider rescues in 2020 and created Sugar Haven Rescue in 2021. In 2024, the rescue became a 501c3 nonprofit.

Sugar Haven Rescue currently cares for around 85 sugar gliders in their Barre, Mass. facility but has over 225 in their care throughout the country. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

It wasn’t an easy choice to turn her attention away from her six-figure job and focus all her time and resources on her rescue. But she couldn’t keep doing both.

“It was getting to a point where I was just getting so burned out I had to make a choice,” Tower said.

Savings and some side work as an accountant has helped with her personal expenses, admitting she’s “roughing it for the greater good.” She hopes to one day make a small salary running the rescue. But for now, things “have miraculously worked out.”

Sugar Haven Rescue has about 85 sugar gliders in their care at a Barre, Mass. facility, but over 220 sugar gliders in their care throughout the country. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

Still, she never looked back.

“I’ve really just been putting my heart and soul every single day into it,” she said.

As she spoke, her hands — lined with thin red scratches and small scabs — made the cost visible.

“Their nails are like needles. So, if they don’t get cut every seven to 10 days, they get really, really sharp,” she said, adding that newly rescued sugar gliders often “come in with talons on them.”

Adoption

Sugar gliders may be cute, but they aren’t easy pets.

They bite, they pee on you and you “can’t leave for a weekend unless you have somebody to take care of them,” Michelle Cutler, of Glidergals Sugar Gliders, previously told MassLive. They also need special food, toys and crates, which can get expensive and aren’t always easily found at popular pet stores.

Sugar Haven Rescue currently cares for around 85 sugar gliders in their Barre, Mass. facility but has over 225 in their care throughout the country. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

Plus, you can’t have just one.

Melvin eats a fish stick in his cage on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

The animals are social, and it can be devastating to split up families.

“The fathers play a huge role in that baby,” Cutler said.

Sugar Haven Rescue currently cares for around 85 sugar gliders in their Barre, Mass. facility but has over 225 in their care throughout the country. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

They often help take care of the babies, including watching them while the mother eats. This, she said, is an important role for male sugar gliders that shouldn’t be taken away.

“They can die of depression,” she said.

Still, it doesn’t mean they’ll all get along. Rescued sugar gliders can have a difficult time coming into a new home.

“They’re relatively socially hierarchical,” Dr. Greg Mertz of the Odd Pet Vet in South Weymouth told MassLive in 2023. “And so if you’re a stranger sugar glider coming into an already existing pod, then you don’t know where you are on the pecking order. And that can be an issue.”

The animals can also easily get sick and vet bills can get expensive, Cutler warns, adding she spent $7,000 on vet bills once.

Sugar gliders can get tooth decay from their diet, especially by eating dried fruits or a yogurt drop, the veterinarian warned. And inbreeding, a common problem, can lead to neurological issues such as Wiggles disorder.

“(Sugar gliders) hide their illness,” Cutler said. “People don’t know this and then they end up walking in (to the vet) and their glider’s dead.”

Cutler helped make sugar gliders legal to own in the commonwealth in 2014. But the issues she has seen with sugar gliders in Massachusetts are heartbreaking, which is why it isn’t easy to adopt from Sugar Haven Rescue.

Tower calls it an “extensive process.” But she said it’s important to take the time for people to understand what it takes to care for these animals. Otherwise, she said, they end up back in the rescue or dead.

Tower said she’s taken in rescues that were adopted out by MSPCA in Massachusetts.

The MSPCA previously told MassLive they require proof that the person’s caging is sufficient and the right size, that they are sent home in groups and that the person understands the sugar glider’s diet.

But that isn’t enough for Tower. She hopes to work with them in the future to expand their requirements and also provide teaching opportunities for potential adopters.

Expanding

Tower is grateful for her current space, but she’s quickly outgrown it. She’s currently raising money for the next Sugar Haven Rescue location.

She hopes to have a bigger space to be able to take in more sugar gliders. But she also hopes she can travel with her sugar gliders.

“One of my goals is to eventually get some sort of an RV or possibly maybe a charter bus or something and renovate it — put cages in it and just go around the country basically just spreading the good word,“ she said.

Leah Tower runs Sugar Haven Rescue and is seen here caring for one of about 85 sugar gliders currently being cared for in this Barre, Mass. facility on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.

She’d be able to set up events and allow people to handle some of the sugar gliders. Rather than goat yoga, she imagines hosting movie nights where sugar gliders curl up with the audience.

• Read more: What is a sugar glider? 5 things to know about the marsupial that can be a pet

Sugar Haven Rescue has about 85 sugar gliders, multiple rows of cages and a lot of plastic totes full of fuzzy blankets and pouches to hang in the cages in Barre, Mass. on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.

She also hopes to teach organizations across the U.S., including providing research for veterinarians.

“At this point, I feel that if Sugar Haven were to shut down, the community would be at a huge loss,” she said. “They rely very heavily on our organization to help with a lot of things.”

She is passionate about her work but she doesn’t want the fate of sugar gliders to be in the hands of a few organizations. Instead, she said, she hopes to abide by the proverb: Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

Sugar Haven Rescue has about 85 sugar gliders, multiple rows of cages and a lot of plastic totes full of fuzzy blankets and pouches to hang in the cages in Barre, Mass. on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.

Until then, she’ll continue offering her services, rescuing as many sugar gliders as she can and mentoring others. And she does it all without judgment.

“We’re not just a rescue. We’re not just here to take in your surrendered pets. We’re gonna try to talk to you and see what it is that you’re having issues with. Maybe we can help you,” Tower said. “We’re gonna do whatever we can to try to keep the gliders in their home and maybe even help you to get better informed with what you have on your plate. Because it’s very understandable that a lot of people don’t get the right information.”

Sugar gliders have a complex diet. Leah tower shows some of the food she cooks and then freezes for her rescued animals. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

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Sugar Haven Rescue currently cares for around 85 sugar gliders in their Barre, Mass. facility but has over 225 in their care throughout the country. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

Sugar gliders have a complex diet. Leah tower shows some of the food she cooks and then freezes for her rescued animals. As pictured on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026 in Barre, Mass.

Reporter Heather Morrison holds a sugar glider in Barre, Mass. on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.