Tales From the Jungle: May 2022
As we put nearly half the year behind us (holy cow, where is 2022 going?) we have so much great news for you! May has kept us busy installing more Sloth Crossing Wildlife Bridges, saying goodbye to one of the sloths of the Urban Sloth Project, receiving important awards, and more!
Future for Nature winner
This month our founder and executive director Dr. Rebecca Cliffe traveled to Amsterdam to receive the Future for Nature Award of €50,000! (About $53,000 US.) For an entire week, she got to hang out with fellow conservationists from around the globe, environmental authorities, and other people fighting for the future of planet Earth. Check out this video with Dr. Rebecca’s presentation about our Sloth Scat Detection Dog and how we’re going to be putting this award to good use.
Inspiring the next generation
SloCo is also proud this month to have participated as advisors in the first Thinkaton Monge; a competition organized by one of the most important tech businesses in Costa Rica. The participants were university students who had to solve a given problem with a technological solution.
The problem this time was: the lack of data on sloth populations! The winners proposed sloth counting using thermosensitive cameras in drones mixed with a centralized national database. Wow. This would be a real game-changer for our favorite arboreal mammals. Congratulations to the winners Alejandra Merino and Ricardo Cascante for their ‘SlothFinder’ proposal!
Welcome to Sloth Town, a visual journey by Suzi
Just in case you’ve missed it, we published a shocking article written by wildlife photographer and SloCo trustee, Suzi Eszterhas, about the lives of the sloths living in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. The article is illustrated with a selection of photographs taken during the week she spent here.
Can we make Sloth Town a safer place for sloths?
Our Sloth Friendly Network certification is an initiative looking to do exactly that: make human-wildlife coexistence possible by making our streets and gardens safer for animals. The accredited members of the SFN are businesses that have installed Sloth Crossing Wildlife Bridge, planted trees, trained their pets to not attack wildlife, educate their guests about responsible tourism, and supported community conservation in other ways.
Goodbye, Baguette!
Baguette was one of the sloths we were monitoring for the Urban Sloth Project, but alas, all good things come to an end—but it was a very cute, Happily Ever After kind of ending. After monitoring her for almost a year, we decided it was time to let Baguette go. Read her story, and all about why she is still one of the most difficult sloths to track!
Sloth Food and Digestion: new Slothopedia entry
Continuing with our commitment to bring you the very best, most up to date and most accurate information on all things sloth, we have for you our latest Slothopedia entry about sloth food. How long does it take a sloth to digest a leaf? Do they eat things besides leaves?
Bridges in the sky carry sloths to safety in Costa Rica
This month we also received a visit from a journalist hailing all the way from Mongabay who recorded some footage of our Sloth Crossing Project. Check the video below to learn more about how we generate safe connectivity for sloths in urban areas.
Thanks for sticking with us so far, and we will see you next month as we kick off summer in June!
All the best from the jungle,
-SloCo Team
