Slothtober 2024 | Tales From The Jungle
October (Slothtober!) is one of our busiest (and favorite!) months of the year—not only because it’s an entire month dedicated to celebrating all things sloth, including International Sloth Day on the 20th, but also because it provides us with the perfect opportunity to amplify our mission and engage more people than ever in the urgency and importance of sloth conservation, habitat preservation, and reforestation!
Published Paper
This Slothtober was marked by our latest published research on how climate change threatens sloths, which was covered by media in several countries and languages. The research, titled “Sloth metabolism may make survival untenable under climate change scenarios,” explores a possible future for sloths and their survival in a warming world. And, unfortunately, the future does not look great. You can read the details of the research here.
Legislative Assembly to Discuss Sloth Tourism
As we often say, individual actions are valuable and important, but making meaningful change sometimes requires legislative action, whether to address climate change worldwide or tackle issues at the local level.
Last week, we were invited to the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, along with other professionals and colleagues, to discuss and address a widespread issue in the country: sloth tours and encounters. We were called upon to provide policymakers with insights into sloth ecology and conservation from a scientific perspective, backed by over 15 years of research on wild sloths and advocacy for environmental education and responsible tourism.
Seeing SloCo’s work recognized at the government and policy level not only makes us proud but also highlights the impact of awareness-driven initiatives, the importance of our research, and the power of grassroots support to influence policy. We’ll update you with more on this soon!
Trees, Bridges, Schools, and Camera Traps
Back in Puerto Viejo, the Connected Gardens team successfully installed seven new wildlife crossings and planted 287 sloth-friendly trees. But the Connected team traveled a lot this month: in addition to visiting the neighboring towns of Cahuita and Manzanillo, at the beginning of the month, they embarked on a five-hour boat ride to Tortuguero to maintain the bridges we installed there and to give a sloth conservation class to 80 kids!
The team also returned with a lot of footage from two of the camera traps installed on bridges SC-083 and SC-300. No sloths this time, but plenty of anteaters, opossums, squirrels, kinkajous, howler monkeys, and endangered spider monkeys!
Growing Team Sloth
October also saw us say hello (and goodbye 🙁) to SloCo volunteers from around the world! While saying goodbye to our volunteers is always a sad moment, we’re thrilled to welcome new volunteers as well—a group of young conservationists, sloth enthusiasts, and professionals from Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands, and the UK.
Volunteers are essential in helping us run two of our major research projects: The Urban Sloth Project and The Great Sloth Census, both of which involve hundreds of hours of fieldwork each week. Thank you!
Wrapping Up Slothtober
Now that Slothtober is over, we can reflect on just how important our supporters are to the work we do—from donors and sponsors to those who share our content to raise awareness, as well as the dedicated SloCo team and our committed volunteers.
Thank you once again for your support! Even though Slothtober is over, you can still support our ongoing conservation and research projects by making a donation, sponsoring a Sloth Crossing canopy bridge, purchasing a sloth book or 2025 calendar from our shop, or adopting a sloth!
Dr. Rebecca Cliffe
Founder and Executive Director
