Questions and Certainties
Are sloths drinking more water than before? Is the smoke from cars affecting the delicate micro-ecosystems of green algae and moths that sloths have in their fur? Are sloths affected by artificial lights?
These questions, and many others, have yet to receive clear answers. These inquiries arise from observing sloths living in urbanized areas, like the ones we are studying under our Urban Sloth Project, which is now entering its 4th year.
There’s one question we do have a sure answer to: Why is it essential to study sloths? Because it’s not possible to adequately protect an animal you don’t understand. Studying sloths is the only way to improve and develop better conservation strategies.
The Urban Sloth Project (USP) is far from ending; research requires years of commitment. And this isn’t the only research we’re currently conducting: while learning more about sloth ecology, behavior, and dispersion with the USP, we’re also collaborating with colleagues from Brown University and the Universidad de Costa Rica to study sloth hair, parasites, and feces.
Additionally, we’re training and beginning to work with our scat detection dog, Keysha, complemented by our thermal drone to study population trends of sloths. We urgently need to answer this significant question: How many sloths are there?
Although there’s still much to learn, sloth research is already positively impacting, for example, rescue centers, improving their rehabilitation programs, and making reintroductions more successful than before.
Supporting sloth research and science is easy!
You can either make a donation or adopt one of our sloths to gain deeper insight into the USP and the lives of these amazing creatures we love and protect.
You’ve already met Luiza, for example. You can adopt her starting at just $25 with our Virtual Adoption Pack. If you’re seeking something extra, consider our Premium Adoptions, which include everything shown in the images below:
Adopt a Sloth!
Of course, we must mention our VIP subscription, which offers all biographies, photos, illustrations, and monthly updates of all the sloths we monitor. Regular donations help immensely, ensuring funds to organize our work.
As we prepare to wrap up the year, starting with recaps, annual reports, and all those things you’re probably doing too, I want to thank you for reading this far and for supporting our work. As we always say, none of our research and projects to protect sloths would be possible without you.
Cecilia Pamich
Communications & Outreach
