Collaring Tender the Sloth Through the Lens of a Photographer
The following text was penned by Rona Neri, a photographer who came to Costa Rica to capture its wildlife. She documented the process of collaring a sloth named Tender for the Urban Sloth Project. Enjoy the stunning imagery and Rona’s narrative.
Many locals in the beach town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, where the Sloth Conservation Foundation is located, help Dr. Rebecca Cliffe and her team by alerting her when they find a sloth. Some of these urban sloths live next to restaurants, hotels, and private homes, and when they come lower in the trees, the team has the opportunity to place new collars on them. This two-fingered sloth lives next to a restaurant.
He’s named Tender because his mom’s name was Tiki and the Tiki Tenders are the most popular item on the restaurant menu!
Because he was relatively low to the ground, he was accessible to collar. Two-fingered sloths need sedation to be collared. They will use their teeth and claws to defend themselves! Here Dr. Cliffe is climbing up to administer the injection to make Tender sleepy.
Urban sloths live very close to roads and power lines and are vulnerable to deaths and injury by cars, electricity, and packs of dogs. This is our group of photographers photographing Tender. You can see how close he was to the main road.
Jim, the stuffed sloth, provides real sloths a soft, comforting place to cling to. Jim is waiting patiently for Tender’s arrival.
Dr. Cliffe brings Tender carefully down from the tree. Sloths will hang tenaciously even when sedated. Some will even continue to stay locked hanging from a branch after death!
Tender instinctively grabs onto Jim as he’s lowered into the crate. We moved him to a quieter area away from the road to learn more about him and give him his new collar.
Dr. Cliffe shows off Tender’s state-of-the-art GPS collar. New tech makes them light enough for sloths, and they collect a wide variety of data. After six months, the collar will automatically drop off and can be retrieved by following its signal. Then researchers can download the collected data.
Possibly my favorite photo of the trip. Tender peacefully sleeping on Jim, unaware that he’s about to contribute to greater scientific understanding about his global sloth family.
Tender had especially gorgeous blond fur. Some of the algae and fungi in sloth fur have been shown to have anti-bacterial and cancer-fighting properties.
While he was sedated, Dr. Cliffe and her team took Tender’s measurements and hair samples to add to their data as they learn more about sloths and begin the first sloth census.
Tender shows how he automatically will hang, even while sleeping. Despite not having much muscle mass, sloths are incredibly strong – 3 times stronger than the average human! Their specialized muscles let them hang suspended while using almost no energy, but they are so strong that predators can’t pull them from trees.
Cliffe’s team has come up with a very clever way to weigh sloths. They use a luggage scale! They only need to slide the sloth’s claws onto the handle holder and the sloth will hang on as they lift it to find its weight.
Two-fingered sloths have bare fleshy pads on their hands and feet for gripping trees.
Many hands make light work. The team works quickly together to fit Tender’s new collar.
Still sleeping, Tender’s new collar is attached. Though sloths move very slowly and don’t appear to be very active, they actually only sleep 8-10 hours a day, much less than many other mammals – and a few teenagers I used to live with.
Tender’s afternoon nap with Jim comes to an end as Dr. Cliffe administers the medication to help him wake up.
Becoming alert again, Tender opens his eyes. Sloths have very poor eyesight, are colorblind and can hardly see at all in full sunlight. But they have excellent spatial awareness and their deliberate movements help them to successfully navigate.
Dr. Cliffe brings Tender back to the same tree where she found him. Though sloths can eat several types of leaves, each sloth is taught by his mother to eat a select few, so it’s very important to keep sloths in their own territories with familiar food sources.
While naturally slow, sloths can move fairly quickly and steadily when needed. Tender was determined to get back up into his tree where he was safe.
The curved nails of the sloth never stop growing, but wear down naturally through climbing and hanging. Hopefully Tender is still hanging around in Puerto Viejo and collecting useful data for the SloCo scientists.
-Rona Neri
Photographer
A huge thank you to Rona Neri for the stunning photos and storytelling! You can follow her work on Facebook, Instagram, and see more of her photographs on her website Rona’s Photography.
