As the slowest mammal in the world — with a side of bad hearing and vision — the sloth's survival story is an unusual one. The animal is now facing the threat of climate change and human sprawl.
Sloths, the world's slowest mammals, have evolved over 64 million years into a species that thrives throughout Central America and northern South America, but climate change and human sprawl could be threatening the species' survival.
For Cliffe to collect data, she has to collect sloths. The mammal, a master of disguise, can be hard to spot, even though neither of the two species in the country are considered endangered. Finding sloths is the full time job for one of Cliffe's colleagues. He climbs barefoot up stories-tall trees covered in biting ants to reach sloths, putting them in a bag and lowering them down. The team collects manual data, such as the type of trees the sloths live in. The sloths are also given a tiny backpack with a data logger that can record their micro body movements and behavior.
"They're saving energy. They're vegetarians, and leaves don't want to be eaten any more than antelope do, right? So they create a lot of toxins," Cooke said."So the sloth can digest those toxins, but only very, very slowly. They don't want to process them fast. And so they're all about burning as little energy as possible."
The Toucan Rescue Ranch also takes in orphaned sloths. It can take up to two years for the orphans to be released back into the wild.
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