Love sloths? Give them some space
On International Sloth Day, a Northeastern expert explains how to help these famously chill animals hang in there.
Happy International Sloth Day! October 20th is a chance to celebrate these famously chill critters and look out for their future in the wild.
Their name might mean “laziness,” but the reputation isn’t entirely fair. Curled up in the branches or dangling belly-up, they might look like professional nappers, but wild sloths only sleep about 10 hours a day — on par with many preschoolers.
They do take their time with just about everything. A ficus leaf can take a month to make it through their digestive system. Bathroom breaks follow a leisurely schedule, too. Sloths go number two about once a week, shedding up to a third of their body weight in one go.
Sloths fall into two main groups — two-toed and three-toed — containing seven species altogether. A footnote on the naming system: all sloths have three toes on their hind feet. The names refer to the front ones.
Costa Rica is home to two species — Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth, named after German naturalist Karl Hoffmann who discovered it in 1858, and the brown-throated three-toed sloth. The two of them share the spotlight as the country’s national symbols. The total number of sloths worldwide is unknown. However, the pygmy three-toed sloth has an estimated population of 2,000-2,500, all living on a small island off Panama.
Taking life slowly doesn’t mean having it easy. Looking like plushies come to life has made sloths a popular draw for tourists eager for an up-close encounter.
According to Sam Trull, executive director and co-founder of The Sloth Institute, a nonprofit in Costa Rica, up to 90 percent of sloths taken from the wild die before reaching their destination.
Dozens of sloths died after being imported for Sloth World, a planned tourist attraction in Orlando, Florida. Following the tragedy, Florida representatives Maxwell Frost and Laurel Lee announced the SLOTHS Act on Oct. 20, proposing a ban on imports for tourist attractions and the pet trade.
Conservation groups are also calling for change.
International Sloth Day began in 2010 to raise awareness about the mammal. This year, The Sloth Institute and the Sloth Conservation Foundation, another nonprofit based in Costa Rica, are pushing for stronger protections against commercial trade. The foundation, founded by zoologist Rebecca Cliffe, works with Trull’s organization through the Sloth Protection Alliance.
Northeastern Global News interviewed marine and environmental sciences professor Matthew Lundquist of Northeastern University about sloth conservation and how people can admire wild animals without putting them at risk. Here are five insights from the conversation.
1: Not all attractions are created equal.
Removing any species from their home disrupts a delicate balance, wreaking havoc on the food web and other relationships that keep it running.
That said, pulling an animal out of their habitat isn’t always bad news.
Zoos and sanctuaries might provide them with everything they need — and even benefit some that need extra protection.
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Alveus Sanctuary in Texas gives animals that can’t return to the wild a permanent home while offering round-the-clock livestreams so people can get to know the animals and support their care from afar.
Tourist attractions are another story. The animals might not get proper care, Lundquist said. Hands-on encounters in particular put animals under stress.
2: Captivity can last a lifetime — and sloths don’t take to it easily.
“Once an animal is in captivity, it’s in captivity,” Lundquist said.
Some programs breed animals for release or temporarily take them in for medical treatment. However, capture often means a lifetime in human care. Animals get used to being fed, and may struggle to fend for themselves — especially if they were captured when they were young.
Sloths in particular don’t fare well in captivity, Trull said.
They can live into their 50s, but even at top facilities, their average lifespan reaches just 13 to 20 years. In private collections, it’s shorter still, according to Trull.
3: Cuteness can be a blessing and a curse.
“We consider sloths to be flagship species that are really charismatic, really interesting, really cute,” Lundquist said. Their star power can draw support for protecting the whole habitat.
“Being able to see them … is actually a good thing for conservation,” he said. In addition to providing for their needs, it helps protect the ecosystem as a whole as the not-so-cute neighbors share the conservation spotlight.
The trouble starts when popularity fuels demand to capture them for pets or tourist encounters.
4: Helping sloths hang in there means learning about their habits
In The Adventures of Dr. Sloth: Rebecca Cliffe and Her Quest to Protect Sloths, Suzi Eszterhas tells Cliffe’s story as the co-founder of the Sloth Conservation Foundation set out to learn about the sloths, outfitting them with tiny backpacks to track their movements. Planting trees to make sure they had a home base to return to, she came to be called Dr. Sloth.
Following their slow-moving subjects has paid off. When Cliffe’s team tracked a mother sloth named Martita crossing a road with her baby clinging to her belly, they used the data to help secure a canopy bridge, giving local wildlife a route above the traffic.
The local population is also a treasure trove of knowledge about the species living there, Lundquist added. Conservation is a team effort, involving boots-on-the-ground conservationists working with locals and government officials, he said.
5: Curiosity is great, but please keep your hands to yourself!
“Having access to wild animals and seeing them in their natural habitat is not a bad thing, particularly if that raises awareness for these animals,” Lundquist said.
But approaching wildlife is a no-no, even if you’re ziplining down a mountain and spot a smiling sloth along the way. What looks like a theme park ride to you is a daily commute for animals going about their daily business, he said.
“Wild animals should be given space. It’s the same whether you’re walking up to a sloth versus walking up to a bison,” he said. “The sloth probably isn’t going to harm you, but there’s a potential you’re going to harm the sloth.”
Sloths are a model of boundaries.
“I love sloths because they are one of the few animals in the rainforest that mostly mind their own business,” Trull wrote in a post on the Sloth Institute website, referring to the rainforests across Central and South America. “In fact, if more people were like sloths, we would probably already have world peace.”
