Tales From the Jungle: February 2023
We hope our newsletter finds you enjoying this lovely month of hearts, friendship, romance, and other springtime giddies. February has been an exciting month here at SloCo, and we are thrilled to be sharing the news and updates with you!
Luna and Sol auction winner!
We also want to give a huge shoutout to everyone who participated in our Luna and Sol painting auction! Thanks to your support (and the inherent adorability of Luna and Sol, of course), we raised $275 that will directly fund materials needed for the Urban Sloth Project. Congratulations to the winner, Andrew from the UK!
If for some reason you really needed a sloth painting in your house and are pulling out your hair over having missed this one, let us reassure you that we will be doing more such auctions in the future, so stay tuned for opportunities to support us and nab some original sloth art along the way.
New baby in town!
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, we got the best sort of news to make you go “Awwww!” — our little Urban Sloth Croissant surprised us with a new baby! Croissant is a very pretty little three-fingered sloth hanging out high in the trees of a downtown wilderness area; read all about her, her territory, and her Urban Sloth companions by joining our VIP community. We promise updates of our quirky sloths, cute pictures, and jungle adventures, all delivered in a monthly update.
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The Great Sloth Census
Look at this, two paragraphs in and we have managed to not yet geek out about our latest research initiative, the Great Sloth Census! To call this project exciting is a massive understatement, this is going to be some of the most important work SloCo has ever done for sloths.
We started the Great Census back in August of last year. After many months of training with Working Dogs for Conservation, our dog Keysha has finally passed the test to become the first ever sloth scat detection dog, and will be a crucial part of sloth-counting history. Her companion Dayko ALSO had a lot of fun in sloth detection training, but ultimately did not pass the test due to his passionate desire to be a total goofball. It’s ok Dayko, we love you anyway.
We can’t wait to take our newly certified detection dog out into the field and, finally, get an accurate picture of the local sloth population.
The Great Sloth Census doesn’t stop with our trusty canine companions though, as this year SloCo is taking to the skies and will also be counting sloths with a specialized thermal drone. (The future is here, and it is awesome!)
As you can see from the photos, this drone will be a really valuable complement to our research. To keep things interesting, the battery of the drone, a DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Advance, only lasts around 30 minutes, and our sessions in the jungle usually take four to six hours, so we are going to need at least 10 of these batteries. If you want to see more sloths from the sky and help contribute to this research, you can make a donation or contact us directly.
BUY A DJI Mavic 2 Battery
Aquatic sloth found on the mainland
In the latest news from long ago (if that’s not an oxymoron), researchers in Argentina have found fossils of Thalassocnus, a giant aquatic sloth that lived between 3 to 5 million years ago, on the mainland of South America. If you want to know more about the implications of this discovery, read it on our blog!
We hope you had a lovely Month of Love and enjoyed all the exciting news we shared. As we move forward into the next month, we’re thrilled to announce that our Annual Report is coming out soon!
This report is an in-depth document that covers everything from our projects to our finances and goals for the year. We can’t wait to share it with you! So, be sure to keep an eye out for it and stay tuned.
Thank you for being a part of our community, and we look forward to continuing this journey together!
All the best from the jungle,
Team Sloth
