The Sloth Wellness Centre - Interview with Monique Pool part 2 - The Green Heritage Fund Suriname

The sloth is a popular animal on the internet at the moment. There are a lot of silly sloth memes and even on Steemit there are quite a few posts about this peace-loving animal. And rightfully so, the sloth is way more cute than a kitty and he’s vegan. He only eats leaves from specific trees like the cecropia.

The Cecropia, one of the favourite trees of the sloth.

But nothing prepares you for their cuteness in real life. Especially the baby sloths are adorable and therefore it’s no wonder that some people might want to buy them. (Which is illegal.) But please don’t. Buy a kitty or a puppy instead. Sloths are very difficult to keep. They have a very specialised diet of specific leaves from specific plants and trees and are known to be local eaters. That means that they will only eat what they are used to eat and they learn that in the first two weeks of their lives when they taste the leaves on the mothers lips. The sloth is a wild animal that belongs in the forest.

There are two types of sloths in Suriname. The two-toed sloth (Linnaeus's two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus)) and the three-toed sloth or Pale-throated sloth (Bradypus tridactylus). In my post Sloth on the Move I thought that they defecate from the tree tops. But apparently only the two-fingered sloth does that. The pale-throated sloth climbs down from the tree tops once a week to dig a little hole and poo in there. Scientist are not sure why they do that. It might be that the sloth-moth that feeds of the algae growing in the sloth its fur benefits from this behaviour so that it can lay its eggs in the sloths faeces.

Because of the algae growing in its fur the sloths are very well camouflaged. If they are not moving they are very difficult to spot. That's a good thing because they are not on the top of the food chain. Known predators include jaguars, margays, harpy eagles, and anacondas. Can you spot the sloth in the next picture?

Sloths are classified as folivores since their main diet consists of leaves. Leaves provide very little energy and nutrients. The sloth has a specialised stomach with multiple compartments in which symbiotic bacteria break down the leaves.

source

The pale-throated sloth only lives in Venezuela, the Guyanas and a small part of Brazil north of the Amazon river. So although they are classified as least concern according to the IUCN, we must be very careful to protect their relatively small habitat.

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In the second part of the video Monique discusses how she, with the help of an army of volunteers, rescued 200 sloths in 2012 because of a deforestation project on privately owned land to make way for pasture.

In 2014 the BBC World Service published an in depth article about this rescue operation and how Monique ended up with 17 baby sloths in her living room. Here are a few photographs from that article.

200 sloths had to be rescued because of a deforestation project in 2012.

The driver is careful not to hurt the sloths while pushing over the trees.

This baby sloth seems to be happy in his new home

They are so cute, they think that they can get away with anything

The enclosure in Monique's garden packed with sloths.

An army of volunteers helping to feed the sloths.

Sloths hanging around everywhere.

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In the first part of this series I discussed the Sloth Wellness Centre. If you missed the first part, you can read it here.

I suggested to Monique and her volunteers to join Steemit. The centre is near completion but still a lot of money is needed. I'm sure that the fantastic community here will support her noble cause to preserve the environment and help to save the sloths.

In the next and final part of this interview Monique discusses the necessity to protect the sloths and wildlife in general. We also talk about the armadillos and the anteaters, the other two animals in the Xenarthra order.

Much love and a merry Christmas,

Gardenbsquared