A startup known as “Sloth World” brought some 69 sloths to Orlando, Florida, with plans to charge $49 to let visitors see them up close. However, 52 sloths are believed to have died in conditions a former employee described to Mongabay as “heartbreaking,” ultimately forcing Sloth World to shut down, with plans to file for bankruptcy.
Described as a slotharium, the venture was framed as a rescue mission to save sloths from deforested areas in Peru and Guyana. However, according to Rebecca Cliffe, founder and director of the Costa Rica-based nonprofit Sloth Conservation Foundation, that premise amounts to greenwashing, as more than 80% of Guyana is covered in rainforest. “There is no lack of habitat available for these sloths,” Cliffe told Mongabay in a video call.
“There’s no way taking healthy adult breeding sloths out of an ecosystem, to go into a for-profit exhibit in the United States… [is] in the sloth’s best interest,” Cliffe said.
In their natural habitat, sloths mainly eat native tree leaves and live alone.
At Sloth World, the animals were kept in small cages stacked on top of each other and fed vegetables.
“They would feed kale, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash and Mazuri biscuits, an exotic animal feed,” a former caretaker who briefly worked at Sloth World told Mongabay. The caretaker asked not to be named for fear of retribution.
In their two weeks working with Sloth World, the caretaker said they saw a lot of sick animals, that they were told had intestinal problems. Normally, sloths defecate just once per week, but the caretaker said some of the sloths were routinely covered in feces and when they became heavily soiled, the individuals were carried in a pillowcase and washed off.
“That was one of the things that really hurt to see because…. his little arms were struggling all over the place and I know that puts a ton of stress on them,” the caretaker said. “And after they hosed him off, they would just put him back into the enclosure all wet.”
They said the final straw was when a baby sloth in the facility died. It came with its mother, but the mother died after arriving in Florida. “It was heartbreaking,” the caretaker said, adding they quit the job soon after.
A state investigation found 31 sloths died in the facility which lacked proper heating. Peter Bandre, formerly Sloth World’s vice president, told state inspectors that most of the animals died from a “cold stun” when the power went out overnight and the space heaters used to warm the facility didn’t work.
However, Ben Agresta, the owner of Sloth World said the sloths that died had a virus, with “barely any symptoms.”
Sloth World recently shut down and surrendered 13 surviving sloths to the Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Garden. On April 29 the zoo reported that 1 sloth has since died, the remaining 12 are in stable condition.
Banner image: A three-toed sloth. Image by Sergio Delgado via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0.)
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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