Our house had a little side apartment for the caretakers, who were quiet and kind and spoke no English. The second day of moving there, the caretaker showed us a baby sloth he'd found and gestured that it had fallen from it's mother's back and needed to be taken to the rescue center. NO WAY!!! They had a little dog that was a threat to the baby, which is apparently a major threat to all sloths when they come down to the ground once a week to use the bathroom.
We each had a turn holding this cute sloth and watching it's slow movements, my favorite being the slow eye blink. These three-toed sloths always look like they're smiling and are so cute!!!
We set up a little log for it to rest while we got dressed to go. It's so adorable!!!
We drove to the Rescue Center, about a mile away, and met with the workers there. They told us she or he (it was still too early to tell), was probably old enough to survive on it's own, so they would take it back to the tree it fell from. It also happened to be a big day at the Rescue Center because two adult sloths had been nursed back to health for a year and were ready to be released into the wild. The vet said that sloths die in captivity and they don't know why, so this was a huge deal that they survived! They invited us to come watch them get released! WOW! Adventures keep happening!
The baby sloth we found was sooo cute, but this guy was scary!!! When they opened the cage he hissed and swatted his arms around with those giant claws, and he was NOT slow! Those arms were swinging fast and the vet was super cautious! The Rescue Center told us that the wild pet trade is huge and illegal, but it's happening because people thing the babies are so cute and don't realize that they grow up into WILD adults that really hurt them!
This is the second sloth they released. It was so fun to watch them climb the trees. They are not as slow as I imagined, but deliberate, like an experienced rock climber.
Then we drove back to our house and put the baby back on the tree. The vet told us to keep an eye on it to see if it looked healthy the next morning. We checked on it and it was still hanging onto the tree in the exact same spot, but the next day it was gone. Adam found it a few days later on the ground where it died:(. We still haven't told the kids. It was so sad!
Such a cool experience! This is our backyard, by the way:). So beautiful.
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